<p>Dover sole (<i>Microstomus pacificus</i>) is a commercially important, slope dwelling flatfish of the northeast Pacific coast. Its genetic diversity at the mitochondrial DNA control region appears substantially lower than another commercially important flatfish, Pacific sanddab (<i>Citharichthys sordidus</i>). I designed a comparative study along depth and latitudinal gradients using five flatfishes and one brotula. In the control region's left domain, genetic diversity of six species trended lower with increasing habitat depth at Palos Verdes: shallow species had high genetic diversity and deep dwelling species (ex. Dover sole) had low genetic diversity. This diversity gradient may follow decreases in mass specific metabolic rates as Dover sole grow, invade the oxygen minimum zone and assume higher tissue water content. The left domain from 64 Dover sole specimens was compared across 4 latitudinal locations. Genetic diversity trended higher with increasing latitude, possibly due to cold water emergence as biomass shift shallower with increasing latitude. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1591593 |
| Date | 07 July 2015 |
| Creators | Cleveland, Joseph David |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
Page generated in 0.0057 seconds