Abstract
Despite the importance of sex-specific information for sturgeon conservation and management, sex identification has been a major challenge outside of mature adults on spawning grounds. Recent work identified a sex-specific locus (AllWSex2) that appears to be broadly conserved across many Acipenserids, but the assay was not validated for all species within the family. We tested the AllWSex2 marker in three sturgeon taxa (shortnose sturgeon Acipenser brevirostrum, Gulf sturgeon A. oxyrhinchus desotoi, and Atlantic sturgeon A. oxyrhinchus oxyrhinchus) from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Coasts of North America to validate its use for sex identification. Our results indicate AllWSex2 is conserved in all three taxa, presenting a new opportunity to derive sex-specific information from tissue samples, which are routinely collected from these taxa. We found high concordance (range: 97–100%) between genotypic and phenotypic/histological methods, suggesting the assay is broadly effective. However, the small amount of discordance between the methods (< 3%) suggests further refinement may be possible.
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Data associated with this manuscript are published in the supplement.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the National Marine Fisheries Service for providing funding to support the Atlantic Coast Sturgeon Tissue Research Repository at the U.S. Geological Survey Eastern Ecological Science Center. We also thank the Hudson River Foundation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program for providing funding which allowed us to collect and apply the molecular sex marker to shortnose sturgeon. Steve Rider (Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries) provided tissue samples and field identifications of sex for some Gulf sturgeon used in this project. We thank Amy Welsh and Cassia Busch for helpful discussions during the planning stages of this project. Shannon White assisted with figure preparation. This study was funded in part by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management through Interagency Agreement M20PG00003 with the U.S. Geological Survey. Shortnose sturgeon collections were conducted under the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Research Permit 20340 using established protocols (Kahn & Mohead, 2010). Gulf sturgeon collections were authorized by the State of Florida Special Activity Licenses (SAL) SAL-18-1514, SAL-19-1514, and SAL-21-1514. Atlantic sturgeon collections were authorized by the NMFS Research Permits 16507 and 20548. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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R.P. and A.H. were responsible for the collection, transport, and phenotypic sex identification of Shortnose Sturgeon samples. D.F. collected Atlantic (Delaware) and Gulf sturgeon samples and phenotypically sexed individuals in the field. J.K. and C.H. collected Atlantic sturgeon (York River) samples and phenotypically sexed individuals in the field. J.E. conducted histological examinations of gonad samples. N.S. analyzed the Shortnose sturgeon samples using the molecular assay at SUNY Oswego. B.K. analyzed the Gulf sturgeon samples using the assay at the University of Southern Mississippi. B.L., R.J., and D.K. analyzed the Atlantic sturgeon samples using the molecular assay, and created two associated supplemental figures, at the U.S. Geological Survey Eastern Ecological Science Center. All authors contributed to manuscript preparation.
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Sard, N.M., Kreiser, B.R., Pendleton, R.M. et al. Validation of a molecular sex marker in three sturgeons from eastern North America. Conservation Genet Resour (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-024-01346-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-024-01346-6