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Genome sequencing for more sustainable herring fishery
It has been estimated that the total breeding stock of herring in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent waters amounts to about one trillion fish.
Photograph: Many herrings
An international team of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Irish scientists has used whole genome sequencing to characterise 53 herring populations from the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. They have developed genetic markers that make it possible to better monitor herring populations and avoid overfishing. The study is published in the journal eLife.
“This project provides a ‘toolbox’ in the form of genetic markers for cost-effective screenings that can be applied to monitor herring stocks throughout their life history from the larval stage to the adult stage,” concludes Professor Arild Folkvord of Bergen University, who led the GENSINC project, which this study is part of. “It will now be possible to distinguish different stocks when they a