Assessing conservation risks to populations of an anadromous Arctic salmonid, the northern Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma malma), via estimates of effective and census population sizes and approximate Bayesian computation

Census population size (Nc) is crucial to the development of resource management strategies, however, monitoring the effective population size (Ne) of managed populations has proliferated because of this parameter’s relationship to the short-term impacts of genetic stochasticity and long-term population viability. Thus, having a sound understanding of both Nc and Ne, including population connectivity, provides valuable insights into both the demographic and genetic risks to extinction. Here, we assessed microsatellite DNA variation in four (of five known) anadromous northern Dolly Varden (NDV, Salvelinus malma malma) populations from Canada’s western Arctic region, to estimate Ne using both temporal-based and single-sample estimators and to test for associations between Ne and Nc. We also employed approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) to evaluate several evolutionary scenarios that have potentially shaped contemporary population structure in this species, focusing particularly on popul...