AbStr3Ct.— A study of mitochon- 

 drial DNA ( mtDNA > variation in Euro- 

 pean anchovies, Engraulis encrasicolus 

 L., in the northwestern Mediterranean 

 area was carried out with samples from 

 Trieste, Ancona, and Vieste in the 

 Adriatic Sea, from the Ionian, Tyr- 

 rhenian, and Aegean seas, and the from 

 the Sicilian Channel. Restriction frag- 

 ment length polymorphisms (RFLP's) 

 in genes of the NADH dehydrogenase 

 complex (ND genes) were investigated 

 by using the polymerase chain reaction 

 (PCR). Restriction of a 2.5 Kb PCR 

 product coding for ND5 and ND6 re- 

 vealed 53 composite haplotypes in 140 

 fish, 39 of which were unique. Mean 

 haplotype diversity was 0.88; hence lev- 

 els of variation were notably high. 

 Pairwise values of nucleotide diver- 

 gence ranged between 0.00001 and 

 0.01375, and gene diversity analysis 

 indicated that an average of 7.6% of 

 variation was partitioned between 

 samples iG ST ). There was significant 

 geographic heterogeneity, and Monte 

 Carlo x 2 simulations showed that 

 Aegean Sea fish differed significantly 

 from most other samples. Significant 

 differences in the distribution of restric- 

 tion patterns for one enzyme (Sau 961 ) 

 indicated that a degree of heterogene- 

 ity may also exist between anchovy 

 populations in the Adriatic Sea and 

 adjacent waters, although there was no 

 intersample variation within the 

 Adriatic Sea. Overall, the data were in 

 accordance with the results of previous 

 work using allozyme electrophoresis 

 and meristics. 



Stock discrimination among 

 European anchovies, 

 Engraulis encrasicolus, by means 

 of PCR-amplified mitochondrial 

 DNA analysis 



David G. Bembo 

 Gary R. Carvalho* 

 Michael Snow 



Marine and Fisheries Genetics Laboratory, University of Wales Swansea 

 Singleton Park. Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom 



Nando Cingolani 



Istituto di Recerche sulla Pesca Manttima 

 Molo Mandracchio, 60100. Ancona. Italy 



Tony J. Pitcher 



Fisheries Center, University of British Columbia 

 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1 Z4 



Manuscript accepted 25 July 1995. 

 Fishery Bulletin 94:31-40 (1995). 



The European anchovy, Engraulis 

 encrasicolus L., a shoaling clupeoid 

 fish, is distributed along the east- 

 ern Atlantic coast from Scandinavia 

 to West Africa, and is also found in 

 the Mediterranean, Black, and Azov 

 seas ( Whitehead et al. , 1988 ). A com- 

 mercially important species, the 

 anchovy represented around 25% of 

 the Italian pelagic catch in the early 

 1980s (Bombace, 1992). However, 

 the Adriatic Sea anchovy stock, an 

 important contributor to the Italian 

 harvest, suffered a collapse from 

 environmental causes in 1986-87, 

 and catches have not returned to 

 former levels. As a consequence, 

 market values of anchovies have 

 increased tenfold (Cingolani et al. 1 ). 

 The paucity of data on the stock 

 structure of E. encrasicolus in the 

 Mediterranean area belies the eco- 

 nomic significance of the species. 

 The majority of studies have been 

 executed by using phenotypic char- 

 acters, and Levi et al. (1994) have 

 described two putative stocks in the 



Adriatic Sea that have different 

 growth rates, as measured by 

 otolith reading. Recently, Garcia et 

 al. 2 reported no genetic structuring 



To whom correspondence should be ad- 

 dressed. Current address: Molecular Ecol- 

 ogy and Fisheries Genetics Laboratory, 

 Department of Applied Biology, Univ. Hull, 

 Hull HU6 7RX, U.K. 



1 Cingolani, N., G. Kirkwood, G. Giannetti, 

 E. Arneri, and D. Levi. 1994. Note on 

 the stock assessment of Engraulis encra- 

 sicolus ( L. ) and Sardina pilchardus ( Walb. ) 

 of the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea. 

 Unpubl. manuscr. submitted to FAO- 

 CGPM: third technical consultation on 

 stock assessment in the Central Mediterran- 

 ean; Tunis, 8-12 November 1994. Avail- 

 able from FAO, Viale delle Terme di 

 Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy. 



2 Garcia, A., I. Palomera, B. Liorzou, O. 

 Giovanardi, and C. Pla. 1994. North- 

 western Mediterranean anchovy: distribu- 

 tion, biology, fisheries and biomass estima- 

 tion by different methods. Final Project 

 Report to the European Community 

 MA. 3. 730. Available from European 

 Commission, Directorate-General XIV 

 Fisheries, internal resources, Conserva- 

 tion Policy and Environmental Questions, 

 Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels, 

 Belgium. 



