Who's your daddy? Using RADseq to explore survival and paternity in the clownfish, Amphiprion clarkii.

Michelle Ranee Stuart, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, New Brunswick, NJ, United States and Malin L. Pinsky, Rutgers University, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, New Brunswick, NJ, United States
Abstract:
The ability to use DNA to identify individuals and their offspring has begun to revolutionize marine ecology. However, genetic mark-recapture and parentage studies typically require large numbers of individuals and associated high genotyping costs. Here, we describe a rapid and relatively low-cost protocol for genotyping non-model organisms at thousands of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) using massively parallel sequencing. We apply the approach to a population of yellowtail clownfish, Amphiprion clarkii, to detect genetic mark-recaptures and parent-offspring relationships. We test multiple bioinformatic approaches and describe how this method could be applied to a wide variety of marine organisms.