Population structure of the Dover sole, Solea solea L., in a background of high gene flow

To investigate the genetic population structure of the Dover sole, Solea solea L., allozyme electrophoresis was performed on 303 fish collected from seven locations ranging from Cumbria, Great Britain, to Greece. A total of 22 enzyme systems were analysed, coded by 33 loci. Of these, 27 loci were polymorphic using the P99 criterion. A phenogram using Prevosti’s Distance generated by the Wagner method exhibited a geographic pattern in the clustering of populations. Estimates of Nm (effective number of migrants per generation between populations) were sufficiently high to imply near-panmixia between the North Sea, Bay of Biscay and the Irish Coast populations, indicating a probable movement of migrants through the English Channel. However, despite this high level of gene flow, striking patterns of geographic differentiation were observed at a few loci. Allele frequencies at loci ACOH, EST-I-1, PEP-I-2 exhibited genetic patchiness on both local and range-wide (within the northern and southern European basins) scales. This pattern of genetic patchiness could be the result of localised selection, genetic drift or single-generation sampling effects. Estimates of mean heterozygosity .H/ were inversely related to latitude. Evolutionary processes such as genetic drift and founder effect, and=or selection, may have produced the observed difference in the number of alleles between the basins. Moreover, the absence of isolation by distance provides support for a model of geographic isolation. Such a pattern of genetic patchiness, revealing a slight reduction of genetic variability in the northern European basin, may suggest a population bottleneck, or local reduction in population size. Various physical parameters, especially water temperature during the reproductive period, vary within the range of the species, and may produce or maintain this genetic differentiation. These results indicate the role of both ecological and evolutionary structuring mechanisms in determining the genetic population structure of S. solea.  1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.