Human Impacts on Great Lakes Walleye Sander vitreus Structure, Diversity and Local Adaptation.

ABSTRACT: Artificial propagation and wild release may influence the genetic integrity of wild populations. This practice has been prevalent in fisheries for centuries and is often termed 'stocking'. In the Laurentian Great Lakes (Great Lakes here-on), walleye populations faced declines from the 1950s to the 1970s, prompting extensive stocking efforts for restoration. By the mid-2010s, walleye populations showed signs of recovery, but the genetic legacy of stocking on population structure at the genomic level remains unclear. Using a dataset of 45,600 genome-aligned SNP loci genotyped in 1075 walleye individuals, we investigated the genetic impacts of over 50 years of stocking across the Great Lakes. Population structure was associated with both natural geographic barriers and stocking from non-nativ

SUBMITTER: Euclide PT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12684333 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature