DEVELOPMENT OF A SNP MARKER PANEL FOR PARENTAGE, DIVERSITY AND RELATEDNESS ANALYSES IN LARGEMOUTH BASS, Micropterus salmoides

Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) are an extremely popular gamefish species, that has evolved in to a multi-billion dollar sportfishing industry in the United States. Largemouth bass as a foodfish additionally represent a growing sector of the US aquaculture industry with production estimates exceeding 1 million pounds annually. As stock enhancement and breeding programs for this species continue to expand, there is an increasing need for genetic tools that can be used for various applications including parentage analysis and assessments of population structure, genetic diversity, and relatedness.  We report here on the development and characterization of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel for largemouth bass.  A panel of ~ 150 SNP markers was established and used in a study to genotype broodstock samples (n~200) from Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism's (KDWPT) hatchery program and perform parentage analyses on genotyped samples (n~600) collected from stocked reservoirs. Overall genotype call rates averaged 98.5% (+/- 2.7%), and >99 % of the samples collected from reservoirs were assigned as either hatchery-sourced (to single parent-pair crosses), or as wild-sourced. Additional results will be presented on the use of the SNP panel in providing information on diversity and relatedness of hatchery broodstock populations.