A single generation in the wild increases fitness for descendants of hatchery-origin Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).

Reintroduction is an important tool for the recovery of imperiled species. For threatened Pacific salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) species, hatchery-origin (HOR) individuals from a nearby source are often used to reestablish populations in vacant, historically occupied habitat. However, this approach is challenged by the relatively low reproductive success that HOR Pacific salmonids experience when they spawn in the wild, relative to their natural-origin (NOR) counterparts. In this study, we used genetic parentage analysis to compare the reproductive success of three groups of adult Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) reintroduced above Cougar Dam on the South Fork McKenzie River, Oregon: HOR Chinook salmon from an integrated stock; first-generation, wild-born descendants (hereafter F 1s) of Chinook salmon produced at the same hatchery; and NOR Chinook salmon that are presumed to have been produced below the dam, on the mainstem McKenzie River, or elsewhere and volitionally entered a trap below Cougar Dam. We found that F 1s produced nearly as many adult offspring as NORs, and 1.8-fold more adult offspring than HORs. This result suggests that, for the South Fork McKenzie reintroduction program, a single generation in the wild increases fitness for the descendants of HOR Chinook salmon. Although these results are encouraging, care must be taken before extrapolating our results to other systems.

A duplicated amh is the master sex-determining gene for Sebastes rockfish in the Northwest Pacific.

Teleost fish are the most diverse group of vertebrates and provide opportunities to study the evolution of sex determination (SD) systems. Using genomic and functional analyses, we identified a male-specific duplication of anti-Müllerian hormone (amh) gene as the male master sex-determining (MSD) gene in Sebastes schlegelii. By resequencing 10 males and 10 females, we characterized a 5 kb-long fragment in HiC_Scaffold_12 as a male-specific region, which contained an amh gene (named amhy). We then demonstrated that amhy is a duplication of autosomal amh that was later translocated to the ancestral Y chromosome. amha and amhy shared high-nucleotide identity with the most significant difference being two insertions in intron 4 of amhy. Furthermore, amhy overexpression triggered female-to-male sex reversal in S. schlegelii, displaying its fundamental role in driving testis differentiation. We developed a PCR assay which successfully identified sexes in two species of northwest Pacific rockfish related to S. schlegelii. However, the PCR assay failed to distinguish the sexes in a separate clade of northeast Pacific rockfish. Our study provides new examples of amh as the MSD in fish and sheds light on the convergent evolution of amh duplication as the driving force of sex determination in different fish taxa.

The complete mitochondrial genome of a gray reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos (Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae), from the Western Indian Ocean.

We present the mitochondrial genome sequence of a gray reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos (Bleeker 1856), a coral reef associated species. This is the first mitogenome for this species from the western Indian Ocean. The mitogenome is 16,705 bp in length, has 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and a non-coding control region, and demonstrates a gene arrangement congruent with other shark and most vertebrate species. This mitogenome provides a genomic resource for assisting with population, evolutionary and conservation studies for the gray reef shark, which is increasingly under threat from fisheries.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the Critically Endangered Angelshark, Squatina squatina.

Here, we describe the first mitochondrial genome of the angelshark, Squatina squatina. The genome is 16,689 bp in length with 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and a non-coding control region. Base composition of the mitogenome has an A + T bias (62.9%), seen commonly in other elasmobranchs. This genome provides a key resource for future investigations of the population genetic dynamics and evolution of this Critically Endangered shark.