Salvelinus namaycush Phenotype or Genotype

Understanding the emergence of species through the process of ecological speciation is a central question in evolutionary biology which also has implications for conservation and management. Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) is renowned for the occurrence of different ecotypes linked to resource and habitat use throughout North America. We aimed to unravel the fine genetic structure of the four Lake Trout ecotypes in Lake Superior. A total of 486 individuals from four sites were genotyped at 6822 filtered SNPs using RADseq technology.Overall, the occurrence of different levels of both genomic and phenotypic differentiation between ecotypes within each site with several differentiated loci linked to relevant biological functions support the presence of a continuum of divergence in Lake Trout.