Exploring the Population Structure of Lethrinus Lentjan, a Popular Food Fish in Southeast Asia

The Coral Triangle has long been acknowledged as the biodiversity center of the marine world, with the Philippine archipelago as the “bullseye”.  The likely cause is a high level of allopatric vicariance resulting from many drastic changes in geography, glaciation, and sea level. This study explores the population structure of the pink-ear emperor snapper, Lethrinus lentjan, in the Indo-West Pacific using next-generation sequencing and the ezRAD method developed by Toonen et al. The pink-ear emperor is a popular food fish in southeast Asia found from southern Japan to northern Australia and is generally abundant during two peak seasons of the year. Exploring the patterns of genetic structure in widespread species of the CT will help to uncover the history of speciation in the region as well as the vulnerabilities of fisheries species to exploitation. This project is being conducted as a masters thesis under Old Dominion University’s Biological Sciences Department.