Determining Different Stocks of Narwhals in Baffin Bay and Nearby Areas Using Genomics

Description

The management goal for fisheries resources, including marine mammals, is the maintenance of populations and stocks that will ensure long term sustainability of the resource. Management questions involving narwhals have dominated requests for marine mammal scientific advice in recent years. At the heart of these questions is the need to be able to resolve stock boundaries for management purposes and attempt to understand the amount of genetic exchange that is occurring among these stocks. Additionally, mixed-stock analysis of the large floe edge hunt of migrating animals is essential for monitoring the impacts of community subsistence harvesting occurring in both Canada and Greenland. This information is required to inform total catch levels by communities, harvest sharing models used for assessments of narwhal populations that span international boundaries, and to satisfy Canada's obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Multiple lines of evidence (including genetic) indicate that there are three populations of narwhals in the Arctic: Northern Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay and High Arctic, and eastern Greenland. The Baffin Bay population is thought to be subdivided into at least four separate stocks on the basis of traditional assessment methods, with an additional three other stocks thought to exist. Currently, science advice for community narwhal harvesting is based on a model that considers only the four stocks. Scientific evidence is needed to support the existence of additional stocks. With the goal of meeting this need, the objectives for this project are:

1. to develop at least 20 narwhal-specific, genetic markers using next generation DNA identification techniques;
2. use whole mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome sequencing to assess the differences among narwhal stocks and develop new mtDNA genetic markers to be used in the detection of new stocks;
3. survey new and existing (archived) narwhal samples with the new markers; and,
4. integrate this new genetic data with existing data.

Scientific title for this project:

Stock Delineation of Narwhals (Monodon monceros) from Baffin Bay and Adjacent Areas Using Novel Genetic Markers Developed from Genomic Techniques

Program Name

Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI)

Year(s)

2014 - 2017

Principal Investigator(s)

Lianne Postma

Denise Tenkula
co-leads

Steven Ferguson

Cortney Watt