Empowering regional conservation: Genetic diversity assessments as a tool for eelgrass management

To halt the loss of biodiversity, collaboration among scientists, managers and decision makers is vital. Although biodiversity loss is a global problem, management actions influencing diversity are often on a local to regional scale. Our study is an example of a regional conservation genomic assessment developed in collaboration between scientists and managers. We used 2bRAD sequencing to assess 18 eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows in northwestern Sweden, an area that has experienced large losses of eelgrass since the 1980s. Genetic diversity was comparable to other assessed meadows in the Atlantic, but an order of magnitude lower than eelgrass in the Pacific. All but one meadow showed high rates of sexual reproduction. Almost all meadows were divergent but grouped into five genetic clusters. Four of the clusters correspond to geographic regions that can be used to define management units. Meadows in areas with a high decline in eelgrass between the 1980s to 2020s are more inbred than m..., , , # Empowering regional conservation: Genetic diversity assessments as a tool for eelgrass management

* zostera_PRJNA1043091_ALL_5849.vcf.gz

vcf file including all individuals, with a total of 5849 SNPs and 404 samples

* zostera_meta_data.tsv

Metadata of all individuals

region = name of the waterbody
site = site
code = site code
indv = individual labels
latitude = latitude
longitude = longitude
year = sampling year
meadow_type = level of impact on meadow
meadow_size = if meadow is small<20ha or large > 20ha
MLL = multilocus lineage
kept = yes, if the sample is kept after clone correction and included in zostera_PRJNA1043091_MLLs_4864.vcf.gz

All raw sequences are available on the NCBIs Sequence Read Archive (BioProject PRJNA1043091)