Genetic structure of yellowback sea bream Dentex tumifrons in China inferred from AFLP data

The resource of yellowback sea bream Dentex tumifrons has declined very quickly in China due to overfishing since the 1970s. In this study, a total of 122 wild samples of the yellowback sea bream from marine waters of Qingdao (QD), Zhoushan (ZS), Shenzhen (SZ), and Beihai (BH) were analyzed using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). A total of 265 putative loci were detected by five AFLP primer sets, 116 of which were polymorphic (43.8%). The locality with the highest proportion of polymorphic loci (PPL, 29.4%) and number of polymorphic loci (PL, 78) was ZS, whereas that with the lowest was BH, in which a PL of 64 and a PPL of 24.2% were detected. The locality with the highest Nei’s gene diversity was also ZS with a value of 0.2237, whereas the locality with the lowest was BH with a value of 0.1905. Analysis of Wright’s Fst indicated that there existed distinct genetic differentiation among four localities (P≤0.001). It is speculated that there exist at least four distinct geographic subpopulations of the sea bream in Chinese waters. This research provides some of the first published AFLP data in the species.