DEVELOPMENT OF A SNP MARKER PANEL FOR PARENTAGE, DIVERSITY AND RELATEDNESS ANALYSES IN BARRAMUNDI, Lates calcarifer

Barramundi, or Asian sea bass, are of significant economic importance, being both fished and farmed extensively throughout the Indo-Pacific and increasingly in the northern hemisphere.  Global aquaculture production of this species has increased dramatically over the past two decades from roughly 20,000 metric tonnes in 2000 to over 100,000 metric tonnes in 2015.  As demands rise along with its growing popularity around the globe, the need to establish reliable genetic tools to assess parentage, relatedness and diversity among cultured stocks is of increasing importance.  We report here on the development and characterization of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel for barramundi.  A panel of ~ 178 SNP markers was established for use in genotyping wild or cultured populations of barramundi.  The panel has been tested on varied geographic populations; and the majority are highly informative with an average genotyping success rate of ~98%.  The ability of the SNP panel to be able to distinguish between all individuals in all populations (measured as the discrimination rate) was excellent, with a discrimination rate of 99.99%, even when 2 mismatches were allowed.  These qualities will allow for increased accuracies concerning parentage assignment and various measures of population diversity.  Some examples will be presented on the use of the SNP panel in providing information on population structure, inbreeding and relatedness within barramundi populations.