Evaluating The Accuracy Of Sibling Reconstruction Programs Using Steelhead SNPs

The ability to determine genealogical relationships among individuals within a sample of fish without parental information has many important conservation and management applications. Although several methods are currently available to estimate these relationships, they are computationally intensive and require highly informative genetic markers that are free of genotyping errors and mutations in order to provide accurate reconstruction. In this study, we used a powerful new set of 188 single nucleotide polymorphic markers (SNPs) developed for steelhead to compare the effectiveness of existing sibling reconstruction computer programs in correctly reconstructing family relationships using SNP genotypes from hatchery offspring with known parentage. The verification of the accuracy and performance of these methods could provide opportunities for assessing patterns of dispersal and estimating effective population size in future research programs where field collections often only target one or two cohorts and may not include parents.