442 
NOAA 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
Abstract— Hogfish (Labridae: Lach- 
nolaimus maximus ) is distributed 
across several biogeographic re- 
gions, but its stock structure has 
been poorly documented, confound- 
ing stock assessment and manage- 
ment of this reef fishery species. In 
this study the genetic structure of 
hogfish over a portion of its south- 
eastern U.S. range was examined 
by using a suite of 24 microsatellite 
DNA loci. Fin clips from 719 speci- 
mens were obtained from geographic 
locations ranging from northwest 
Florida through North Carolina. Ge- 
nomic proportions of hogfish were 
partitioned into 3 distinct genetic 
clusters, geographically delineated 
as 1) the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 2) 
the Florida Keys and the southeast 
coast of Florida, and 3) the Caro- 
linas. Clusters 1 and 2 converged 
along the coastal area west of the 
Florida Everglades, but the location 
of the genetic break between clusters 
2 and 3 requires further study be- 
cause of a discontinuity in specimen 
collection between southeast Florida 
and the Carolinas. The geographi- 
cally limited reproductive exchange 
in this species indicates that future 
stock assessments should incorpo- 
rate regionally partitioned analyses 
of life history and fishery data. 
Manuscript submitted 6 May 2014 
Manuscript accepted 13 August 2015. 
Fish. Bull 113:442-455 (2015). 
Online publication date: 2 September 2015. 
doi: 10. 7755/FB. 113.7 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
& established 1881 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U.S Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Genetically determined population structure of 
hogfish (Labridae: Lachnolaimus maximus ) in 
the southeastern United States 
Seifu Seyoum 1 
Angela B. Collins 13 (contact author) 
Cecilia Puchulutegui 1 
Richard S. McBride 2 
Michael D. Tringali 1 
E-mail for contact author: angela.collins@myfwc.com 
1 Fish and Wildlife Research Institute 
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission 
100 Eighth Avenue SE 
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701 
2 Population Biology Branch 
Fisheries and Ecosystems Monitoring Division 
Northeast Fisheries Science Center 
National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA 
166 Water Street 
Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543 
3 Florida Sea Grant 
University of Florida 
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension 
1303 17 th Street West 
Palmetto, Florida 34221 
A fundamental challenge for man- 
aging sustainable fisheries involves 
aligning biological evidence of stock 
structure with fishing and man- 
agement sectors for the purpose of 
monitoring, assessment, and regu- 
latory actions (Cadrin et al., 2014). 
This process is particularly challeng- 
ing around the Florida peninsula, 
where several biogeographic regions 
overlap state and federal boundar- 
ies and fall under the jurisdiction 
of 2 federal fishery management 
councils (South Atlantic and Gulf of 
Mexico). In terms of biogeography, 
there is a strong environmental gra- 
dient both along (north-south) and 
between (east-west) coasts, result- 
ing in distinctive faunal breaks at 
Cape Romano on the west coast of 
Florida and Cape Canaveral on the 
east coast (Briggs and Bowen, 2012). 
Subspecies are frequently recognized 
between the Gulf and Atlantic coasts 
of Florida (Bowen and Avise, 1990), 
and several coastal and marine spe- 
cies are considered to have distinct 
stocks on each coast (Tringali and 
Bert, 1996; Gold et al., 2002; Mc- 
Bride, 2014a). 
Stock structure remains unclear 
for many marine fishery species, in 
part because of a lack of data (Cadrin 
et al., 2014; McBride, 2014a). One 
such example is the hogfish (Labri- 
dae: Lachnolaimus maximus), a long- 
lived reef fish that occurs in temper- 
ate to tropical waters of the western 
Atlantic Ocean (from Brazil to Ber- 
muda) and throughout the Gulf of 
Mexico (Claro et al., 1989; McBride 
and Richardson, 2007; McBride et 
