Advanced approaches to studying the population diversity of marine fishes: New opportunities for fisheries control and management

Recent conceptual and technological advances now enable fisheries geneticists to detect and monitor the dynamics and distribution of marine fish populations more effectively than ever before. Information on the extent of genetically-based divergence among populations, so-called population diversity, is crucial in the quest to manage exploited living resources sustainably since it endows evolutionary potential in the face of environmental change. The generally limited dialogue between scientists, fisheries managers and policy makers, however, continues to constrain integration of population genetic data into tangible policy applications. Largely drawing on the approach and outputs from a European research project, FishPopTrace, we provide an example how the uncovering of marine fish population diversity enables players from genetics, forensics, management and the policy realm to generate a framework tackling key policy-led questions relating to illegal fishing and traceability.