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ABSTRACT:
If there is any generalization to be made about populations of commercially harvested marine species, it is that they all show dramatic numerical fluctuations in both space and time. Traditional approaches to fisheries management, based on standard stock-recruitment models, have repeatedly led to overexploitation of commercially valuable stocks throughout management history. Notable examples in California fisheries include the halibut, sardine, anchovy, salmon, and urchin fisheries. A recent survey of Dungeness crab fisheries practices and catch history suggests that this fishery is also in imminent danger of collapse (Orensanz et al. 1998). It is becoming clear that sustainable management of commercially harvested finfish and shellfish with complex life cycles must include an understanding of how patterns of larval distribution, abundance and dispersal regulate adult population dynamics. This, in turn, depends on explicit knowledge of population structure as well as patterns and amount of larval dispersal between localities. However, to date inferences of the patterns and magnitude of gene flow among populations of marine invertebrates have been “deduced only through weak inference” (Hairston 1989).

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Robert J. Toonen and Richard K. Grosberg, "Molecular Genetic Analysis of Recruitment Patterns in the Dungeness Crab, Cancer magister" (August 25, 2003). California Sea Grant College Program. Research Completion Reports. Paper Fisheries03_02.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/csgc/rcr/Fisheries03_02