Crossing the pond: genetic assignment detects lobster hybridisation.

ABSTRACT: American lobsters (Homarus americanus) imported live into Europe as a seafood commodity have occasionally been released or escaped into the wild, within the range of an allopatric congener, the European lobster (H. gammarus). In addition to disease and competition, introduced lobsters threaten native populations through hybridisation, but morphological discriminants used for species identification are unable to discern hybrids, so molecular methods are required. We tested an array of 79 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for their utility to distinguish 1,308 H. gammarus from 38 H. americanus and 30 hybrid offspring from an American female captured in Sweden. These loci provide powerful species assignment in Homarus, enabling the robust identification of hybrid and American individuals

SUBMITTER: Ellis CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7210874 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature