Genetics and the study of fisheries connectivity in Asian developing countries

Management interventions to halt the decline and restore productivity of coastal fisheries in developing countries are increasingly becoming spatially explicit and focused on local scales. As policies in these countries gravitate towards local management, knowledge of the extent to which the local management units are dependent or independent of others becomes essential to the success of any intervention. Defining resource boundaries and measuring connectivity in the marine environment, however, has not been easy. Asian developing countries, where the capability to use molecular genetic tools in fisheries and aquaculture has escalated in the last few years, are exploring the use of genetic markers as a means to obtain the elusive answers. The challenge is to test the potential of molecular methods and their usefulness to provide some indication of resource boundaries and connectivity among management units in the context of developing countries. The paper presents a brief summary of the available methods to determine connectivity using genetic markers and two examples where they have been applied in Southeast Asia. Recommendations for the more efficient conduct of the research based on the experiences from these projects are presented.