Genetic differentiation between the New Zealand and Falkland Islands populations of southern blue whiting Micromesistius australis

The southern blue whiting Micromesistius australis (Norman, 1937) is found in two geographically distinct areas, the South Atlantic and south-west Pacific Oceans. To date there has been no appraisal of the genetic relationships between the populations in these two areas. Here, we present analyses of New Zealand and Falkland southern blue whiting using mini- and microsatellite loci. Two out of six loci show highly significant allele frequency heterogeneities between the two areas, strongly suggesting genetically distinct populations.