Chapter One – Stock Identification Methods: An Overview

Stock identification involves delineation of population structure of fishery resources—a central theme in fisheries science and management. Developments in molecular biology and chemistry and advances in image analysis and tagging technologies have prompted revolutionary changes in many stock identification approaches. Stock identification is developing as an increasingly interdisciplinary field and has become a requisite component of fishery science and management programs performed worldwide by research institutions and government agencies. Continued sophistication of technological aspects across disciplines (from genomics to modeling) and improved understanding of biological and environmental processes in the oceans have led to a dramatically reappraised second edition of Stock Identification Methods. This book provides a new outlook on recently developed techniques, and continues to provide guidance on how to integrate information from multiple stock identification approaches and draw holistic and robust conclusions that have practical implications for fisheries management and conservation biology.