Fish Population Genetics and Applications of Molecular Markers to Fisheries and Aquaculture: I- Basic Principles of Fish Population Genetics

Fisheries management is getting difficult due to over utilization of fish stocks, pollution and various human activities resulting reduction of genetic resources and variations. Therefore, molecular genetic studies of natural population is dependent on the polymorphic neutral markers and offer the possibility of investigation of population structure and provide scientific data for regulation of harvest to protect weaker populations and finally long term management of fisheries resources. The study of the genetic variation in populations and its change, the following of allele frequencies in populations through time and space, is the main subject of population genetics. This paper emphasizes the importance and development in population genetics and contains a description of procedures used in population genetic studies together with references.