Seasonal Variation of Dolphinfish Stocks (Coryphaena hippurus) in the Pacific Coast of Colombia- Juniper Publishers
Juniper Publishers - Journal of Oceanography Abstract Large pelagic fish are characterized by large population sizes, high dispersal capabilities and cosmopolitan distributions, decreasing the chances for population structuring. Therefore, considering ecological factors that can influence gene flow is important to understand possible stock structure. For the dolphinfish ( Coryphaena hippurus) migratory movements attributed to sea changing conditions have been documented in the Eastern Caribbean. In the Colombian Pacific there has been no evaluation of possible stock differentiation. In order to adequately answer this question, temporal scale must be taken into consideration since seasonal abundance of this fish occurs in the Pacific coast of Central and South America. Here we investigate possible seasonal variation of dolphinfish stocks via analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequence data and analyses of five microsatellite loci. A total of 128 specimens were sampled from the coa