Spatial and temporal genetic analysis of the Cuban white shrimp Penaeus (Litopenaeus) schmitti

The white shrimp Penaeus (Litopenaeus) schmitti [Burkenroad, M.D., 1936. A new species of Penaeus from the American.Atlantic. Anais Acad. Brasil. Cienc. Rio de Janeiro 8, 315–318.] has been part of commercial fisheries in Cuba since 1953. Over exploitation led to a serious decline of the captures in the early 1980s until the fishery was finally closed due to a population crash and captures were reduced to the extraction of only some breeders for the Cuban hatcheries. Previous population genetic studies in this species had shown that wild populations are genetically diverse over geographic distances as small as a few hundred kilometres providing useful information for managers. The present study provides new evidences on the spatial (and also temporal) variation of the genetic diversity and population structure in P. schmitti Cuban wild populations using both allozymes and microsatellites. It is highly probable that low effective population size of P. schmitti in Cuba results in genetic changes through time as a result of genetic drift. Two likelihood-based methods used in this work to estimated effective population size Ne revealed concordant low effective numbers taking into account the species characteristics.