Christophe Pampoulie

Marine and Freshwater Research Institute | MRI

Stock structure is of paramount importance for sustainable management of exploited resources. In that context, genetic markers have been used for more than two decades to resolve spatial structure of marine exploited resources and to fully fathom stock dynamics and interactions. While genetic markers such as allozymes and RFLP dominated the debate...

Supergenes are sets of genes that are inherited as a single marker and encode complex phenotypes through their joint action. They are identified in an increasing number of organisms, yet their origins and evolution remain enigmatic. In Atlantic cod, four megabase-scale supergenes have been identified and linked to migratory lifestyle and environmen...

Lumpfish ( Cyclopterus lumpus ) is a transatlantic marine fish displaying large population sizes and a high potential for dispersal and gene-flow. These features are expected to result in weak population structure. Here, we investigated population genetic structure of lumpfish throughout its natural distribution in the North Atlantic using two appr...

Progress in genome sequencing now enables the large-scale generation of reference genomes. Various international initiatives aim to generate reference genomes representing global biodiversity. These genomes provide unique insights into genomic diversity and architecture, thereby enabling comprehensive analyses of population and functional genomics,...

The photo identification process is based on the identification of a unique animal from a photograph of distinctive body features. Scientists compare these photographs to match one another and assign to an individual a series of observations and other relevant data. As a leader in the use of Photo Identification in Iceland since the 1980´s, the MF...

Batoid fishes are among the most endangered marine vertebrates, yet conservation efforts have been confounded by incomplete taxonomy. Evidence suggest that the critically endangered ‘common skate’ actually represents two species: the flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) and the blue skate (Dipturus batis). However, knowledge of the geographic range...

Supergenes are sets of genes that are inherited as a single marker and encode complex phenotypes through their joint action. They are identified in an increasing number of organisms, yet their origins and evolution remain enigmatic. In Atlantic cod, four large supergenes have been identified and linked to migratory lifestyle and environmental adapt...

Biodiversity in the oceans has dramatically declined since the beginning of the industrial era, with accelerated loss of marine biodiversity impairing the ocean's capacity to maintain vital ecosystem services. A few organisms epitomize the damaging and long‐lasting effects of anthropogenic exploitation: some whale species, for instance, were brough...

Migration routes of exploited marine resources are often investigated using tracking methods such as satellite tags or Data Storage Tags (DSTs). However, this type of research crucially depends on the tagging and recapture effort, and is often unfeasible for small migratory pelagic fish such as capelin because of size constraints. We investigated t...

The rare occurrence of redfish (genus Sebastes) in the White Sea encouraged Rolskii et al. (Polar Biol 43:385-389, 2020) to investigate the species identity of two animals captured near the Sredniy Island at 40 m depth. They reported that their morphological description proved unreliable and that genetic evidence "clearly demonstrated" these redfis...

The impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems can be seen in the changing distribution, migration, and abundance of species in the oceans. For some species this changing environment may be beneficial and can support population expansions. In the North Eastern Atlantic (NEA), the Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) is undergoing an increase in...

Humpback whales were near depletion during the mid-20th century, but for the last two decades they have been recovering rapidly, particularly in polar regions the last few years. The humpback is a migrating baleen whale whose behaviour is believed to be largely discrete between their winter breeding and summer feeding grounds. Recent research on th...

As a result of ocean warming, the species composition of the Arctic seas has begun to shift in a boreal direction. One ecosystem prone to fauna shifts is the Northeast Greenland shelf. The dispersal route taken by boreal fauna to this area is, however, not known. This knowledge is essential to predict to what extent boreal biota will colonise Arcti...

Homing and site fidelity of Atlantic wolffish Anarhichas lupus was studied at the main spawning ground and four different feeding grounds in Icelandic waters. A total of 883 fish were tagged with T-bar anchor tags, whereof 349 fish also received an internally implanted data storage tag (DST). The DSTs data revealed consistent year-to-year migration...

The advent of massive parallel sequencing technologies has resulted in an increase of studies based upon complete mitochondrial genome DNA sequences that revisit the taxonomic status within and among species. Spatially distinct monophyly in such mitogenomic genealogies, i.e., the sharing of a recent common ancestor among con-specific samples collec...

Highlights Mitochondrial monophyly is commonly employed to define evolutionary significant units. Monophyly may be caused by insufficient sampling or a recent common ancestor. Mitogenomic studies are generally based on few samples and prone to sampling issues. Expanded mitogenome sampling negates previous monophyly in fin whales. Abstract The adve...

As a result of ocean warming, the species composition of the Arctic seas has begun to shift in a boreal direction. One ecosystem prone to fauna shifts is the Northeast Greenland shelf. The dispersal route taken by boreal fauna to this area is, however, not known. This knowledge is essential to predict to what extent boreal biota will colonise Arcti...

Chromosomal rearrangements such as inversions can play a crucial role in maintaining polymorphism underlying complex traits and contribute to the process of speciation. In Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), inversions of several megabases have been identified that dominate genomic differentiation between migratory and nonmigratory ecotypes in the Northea...

Morphology-based identification of North Atlantic Sebastes has long been controversial and misidentification may produce misleading data, with cascading consequences that negatively affect fisheries management and seafood labelling. North Atlantic Sebastes comprises of four species, commonly known as 'redfish', but little is known about the number,...

Knowledge of the range and chronology of historic trade and long-distance transport of natural resources is essential for determining the impacts of past human activities on marine environments. However, the specific biological sources of imported fauna are often difficult to identify, in particular if species have a wide spatial distribution and l...

A variety of sex determination mechanisms can be observed in evolutionary divergent teleosts. Sex determination is genetic in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), however the genomic location or size of its sex-locus is unknown. Here, we characterize the sex-locus of Atlantic cod using whole genome sequence (WGS) data of 227 wild-caught specimens. Analyzin...

Biological data were retrieved from 3694 female Atlantic wolffish Anarhichas lupus collected in Icelandic waters at four locations during the breeding season using a long–term study spanning from 2002 to 2013.The main objective was to investigate reproduction investment and timing. In the main spawning ground, little temporal differences were obser...

The occurrence of natal homing in marine fish remains a fundamental question in fish ecology as its unequivocal demonstration requires tracking of individuals from fertilization to reproduction. Here, we provide evidence of long distance natal homing (> 1000 km) over more than sixty years in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), through genetic analysis of...

The origin and life history of 186 Atlantic salmon caught at sea within Icelandic waters were investigated using microsatellites to assess the origin and scales and otoliths to assess freshwater and sea age. A total of 184 samples were aged using scales or otolithes or both. Most of the samples were from individuals in their first year at sea (72.8...

Identification of genome-wide patterns of divergence provides insight on how genomes are influenced by selection and can reveal the potential for local adaptation in spatially structured populations. In Atlantic cod – historically a major marine resource – Northeast-Arctic- and Norwegian coastal cod are recognized by fundamental differences in migr...

Chosson-P, V.; Shears, G.; Rasmussen, M.; Bertulli, C.G,; Stevick, P.; Rickert, S.; Pampoulie, C.;. Sigurjónsson, J.; Víkingson, G. A., 2015, Long-distance migration pattern of Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) from Icelandic waters. , poster presented at Society for Marine Mammalogy’s 21st Biennial Conference, San Fransisco, USA, 12-14-2015

Fishing and climate change impact the demography of marine fishes, but it is generally ignored that many species are made up of genetically distinct locally adapted populations that may show idiosyncratic responses to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. Here, we track 80 years of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) population dynamics in West Greenl...

Vertical divergence in marine organisms is being increasingly documented, yet much remains to be carried out to understand the role of depth in the context of phylogeographic reconstruction and the identification of management units. An ideal study system to address this issue is the beaked redfish, Sebastes mentella - one of four species of 'redfi...

Table S1 Microsatellite estimates of pairwise genetic differentiation among nine S. mentella collections. Table S2 Genetic marker discordance among S. mentella samples for mitochondrial control region (mtDNA clades), rhodopsin SNPs and microsatellite genotype. Table S3 Pairwise F ST genetic differentiation among nine S. mentella collections. mtDN...

The genetic structure of Atlantic herring Clupea harengus L. was investigated in its north-easterly distribution in the Norwegian Sea and adjacent waters, using 23 neutral and one non-neutral (Cpa111) microsatellite loci. Fish from the suspected 2 main populations—the Norwegian spring-spawning herring (NSSH) and the Icelandic summer-spawning herrin...

The spectral sensitivity of visual pigments in vertebrate eyes is optimized for specific light conditions. One of such pigments, rhodopsin (RH1), mediates dim-light vision. Amino acid replacements at tuning sites may alter spectral sensitivity, providing a mechanism to adapt to ambient light conditions and depth of habitat in fish. Here we present...

Lumpfish, or lumpsucker, Cyclopterus lumpus (Linnaeus, 1758) is widely distributed in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a considerable economic value and substantial fisheries occur in several North Atlantic regions owing to the use of its fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries as an alternative to sturgeon caviar. Despite being intensively f...

Inferring the number of genetically distinct populations and their levels of connectivity is of key importance for the sustainable management and conservation of wildlife. This represents an extra challenge in the marine environment where there are few physical barriers to gene-flow, and populations may overlap in time and space. Several studies ha...

Despite the striking physical and environmental gradients associated with depth variation in the oceans, relatively little is known about their impact on population diversification, adaptation and speciation. Changes in light associated with increasing depth are likely to alter the visual environment of organisms, and adaptive changes in visual sys...

The appeal of genetic inference methods to assess population genetic structure and guide management efforts is grounded in the correlation between the genetic similarity and gene flow among populations. Effects of such gene flow are typically genomewide; however, some loci may appear as outliers, displaying above or below average genetic divergence...

Degradation-specific processes and variation in laboratory protocols can bias the DNA sequence composition from samples of ancient or historic origin. Here, we identify a novel artifact in sequences from historic samples of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), which forms interrupted palindromes consisting of reverse complementary sequence at the 5' and 3'...

Due to an improved understanding of past climatological conditions, it has now become possible to study the potential concordance between former climatological models and present-day genetic structure. Genetic variability was assessed in 26 samples from different rivers of Atlantic salmon in Iceland (total of 2,352 individuals), using 15 microsatel...

Although the tendency of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar to form differentiated populations among rivers and among tributaries within large river systems (>100 km-long) is well documented, much less is known about population structure within small river systems (<30 km-long). In the present study, we investigated the genetic effects of straying of hatc...

Accurate prediction of species distribution shifts in the face of climate change requires a sound understanding of population diversity and local adaptations. Previous modeling has suggested that global warming will lead to increased abundance of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the ocean around Greenland, but the dynamics of earlier abundance fluctu...

Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus L.) is a widely distributed commercially important pelagic species. Little is known about the stock structure of this species, but it is thought to be undergoing a range extension due to environmental changes. Knowledge of the stock structure under these changing conditions is fundamental for effective management...