Population structure of minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in the Korean waters based upon mitochondrial DNA polymorphism

Abstract

The Minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, is the smallest baleen whale in the suborder Mysticeti. Because this species inhabits coastal areas, it became a main target species of coastal small-type whaling in the North Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific Oceans, and the species' population size dramatically decreased because of over-exploitation. As a result, the International Whaling Commission declared a global moratorium on whaling and launched the development of a management procedure for protecting the whales. Morphological studies, whaling history analysis, and genetic studies conducted mainly by Japanese scientists showed the existence of one unique "E" stock that inhabits the waters around the Korean peninsula and mixes with the "O" stock in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. We used the mitochondrial DNA control region polymorphism of 348 Minke whales bycaught or stranded in Korean waters from 30 October 1998 to 25 June 2005 to assess the whale population structure by year. The frequency of the 10 major haplotypes from the 40 identified haplotypes was not significantly different among groups, suggesting that a subpopulation was not present. A comparison of the genetic distances calculated with Tamura-Nei's method showed that the distances between groups were lower than those within groups, which suggests that there was no genetic difference in the Minke whale populations. The Fst comparison between groups and the phylogenetic tree constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) and Neighbor Joining (NJ) method also detected no obvious sub-stock structure.