Development o f efficient genetic markers to trace fish fraud and IUU
fishing
Hilleri Jasmien, Maria Coscia and Filip Volckaert
Laboratory o f Biodiversity and Evolutionary Genomics, KU Leuven,
Ch. D eberiotstraat 32, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
E-mail: iasm ien.hillen@ bio.kuleuven.be
Due to the increasing demand fo r fish, in com bination w ith chronic overfishing and IUU (illegal,
unreported and unregulated fishing), fish stocks are declining w orldw ide and food security is likely
to be hampered in the future. It is estim ated th a t g lobally a q u a rte r o f the catches are th ro u g h IUU
fishing. This leads to m ajor econom ic losses, underm ines sustainable fisheries and causes unfair
com petition. Nowadays the deficiencies in w ild fish are largely compensated th ro u g h aquaculture
production. However, the aquaculture ind ustry raises concerns about its environm ental
co m p atib ility. One o f the m ost pressing issues is the am ount o f escapees into the w ild and th e ir
subsequent m ixing w ith natural populations. Escapes not o nly impose large econom ic costs, they
also fo rm a th re at to local b io dive rsity th ro u g h com p etitio n and genetic p ollutio n. In addition,
despite the strict national and European regulations, there are increasing problem s w ith m islabeling
o ffis h (products). In th is project, we w ill use state-of-the-art Next Generation Sequencing (RAD-seq)
to develop SNP m arkers to unravel the fine scale population structure o f European sea bass
(D icentrarchus labrax) across its fu ll d is trib u tio n range - but w ith special atte ntio n fo r the North
East A tla n tic Ocean - and to d istin gu ish w ild fish from (escaped) aquaculture fish. Previous studies
have shown th a t th is approach guarantees the statistical power needed to successfully trace catches
back to th e ir farm (or population) o f origin. A fte r intensive validation and standardization
procedures, a diagnostic to o l based on a selected set o f h ighly d is c rim in a to ry SNP makers w ill be
developed. This to o l w ill be precise enough fo r forensic applications but at the same tim e cheap
and e fficie n t to be used as a routine co ntrol by fisheries a uth orities and in the food industry. The
generic m ethods developed here fo r sea bass w ill fa cilita te sim ilar fu tu re investigations on other
econom ic im p o rta n t marine fish.
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