Life history implications of kinship structure in an Atlantic Herring schooling aggregation

Kinship in natural marine fish systems has been little explored in part
due to costs of genomic analysis. This is especially true for very
abundant and commercially exploited marine fish with broadcast spawning.
Recent advances in genomics have however, facilitated an improved
understanding of population structure in marine systems at fine geographic
scales. Here, we identify kinship structure in an aggregation of Atlantic
Herring (Clupea harengus) juveniles. We identified 11 and potentially up
to 14 half-sib pairs using a suite of 92 sequenced microsatellite DNA
markers and the R package CKMRsim in a sample of N=1391 herring
individuals comprising two cohorts (ages 0+ and 1+) collected from the
2018 Fall research survey of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. We also
discuss the detection of potential full-sibs in the data by way of
association from the half-sib pairs. This study suggests the presence of
kinship structure in a juvenile herring aggregation three months or more
post hatching with implication for our understanding of herring early life
history.