The test is needed to ensure that the blue marlin sold in US seafood markets were not taken from the Atlantic Ocean – the import and sale of blue marlin from the Pacific or Indian oceans is legal in the US, while the marketing of Atlantic blues can bring civil or criminal penalties. Regulation of Atlantic blue marlin reflects overfishing and a troubling drop in population within Atlantic waters.<\/p>\n
Graduate Laurie Sorenson completed the work as part of her Master\u2019s research in the College of William and Mary\u2019s School of Marine Science at VIMS, with professor John Graves and molecular biologist Jan McDowell as her co-advisors.<\/p>\n
Professor Graves, who chairs the US Advisory Committee to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), says \u201cBlue marlin from the Atlantic can be illegally marketed as originating from the Indo-Pacific stock, which is currently unregulated. Laurie and Jan identified 10 new microsatellite markers that enforcement agencies can use to readily discriminate between Indo-Pacific and Atlantic fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new test uses \u201cmicrosatellite markers\u201d – repeating sequences of genetic material along the strands of DNA that lie within an organism\u2019s cells. Closely related individuals – such as those within either the Atlantic or Indo-Pacific stock – tend to share similar patterns of repetition, thus providing a \u201cgenetic fingerprint\u201d for identification.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese new markers amplify well using samples from Atlantic and<\/i> Pacific blue marlin,\u201d says Ms Sorenson. \u201cThat means that they have value and utility in studies of both stocks. Use of these markers will provide a more powerful means of identifying the ocean of origin, allowing enforcement of regulations for this species.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team identified the new markers by examining blue marlin heart tissue, and tested their effectiveness by analysing tissues from 40 blue marlin – 20 from mid-Pacific waters near Hawaii, and 20 from the coast of Ghana in the equatorial eastern Atlantic. They isolated the microsatellite markers using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and other techniques common to the geneticists\u2019 toolbox.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new test provides more power to discriminate Atlantic and Indo-Pacific blue marlin,\u201d says Ms Sorenson. \u201cIt uses a suite of markers to identify a sample\u2019s ocean of origin with enough accuracy to be able to enforce the prohibition on the sale of Atlantic blue marlin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trey Knott, a forensic biologist responsible for testing blue marlin at the NOAA\u2019s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, South Carolina, is scheduled to visit VIMS this winter to be introduced to the new method. He will then transfer the testing procedure to the Charleston Lab, where he plans to put it into operational use later next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New discoveries in marine forensics by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science will allow federal seafood agents to genetically test blue marlin to quickly and accurately determine their ocean of origin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4165,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions\/4165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4163"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}