Funding period: 2024-2027
Lead: Wendylee Stott
Total GRDI funding: $251,950
Beluga exhibit a complex population structure that presents a challenge for management. Beluga populations in the Hudson Bay-Strait Complex are harvested by Nunavik and Nunavut communities. Some of these populations are listed as Threatened (Eastern Hudson Bay) or Endangered (Cumberland Sound). Therefore, they should be monitored using tools that accurately determine the source of a harvested animal. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region sequences, which are currently used to monitor harvest, cannot distinguish among all populations reliably, especially the Western Hudson Bay and Cumberland Sound populations. Genomic markers called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provided more power to distinguish among populations in the Hudson Bay-Strait Complex, but additional work is needed to develop molecular tools to provide timely and cost-effective population-specific harvest estimates. Over 12,000 SNPs were identified in beluga, but only hundreds are needed to discriminate among populations. These informative SNPs can be developed into panels to estimate population-specific harvest. This approach, called genotyping-in-thousands by sequencing (GT-Seq), provides a cost-effective molecular tool because it does not require specialized laboratory equipment or high-performance computing capabilities. We propose to build on data from recent genomic analyses to design and test a GT-Seq panel that could be used to estimate population specific annual harvest in the Hudson Bay-Strait Complex.