ABSTRACT
Eleven samples of Pacific herring from the four seas of Eurasia (Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, Bering Sea, and White Sea), and one sample of Atlantic herring were analyzed. Complete and partial sequences of the mtDNA control region with the sizes up to 1071 bp were used. To verify the haplogroups identified, additional sequencing of the cytochrome oxidase I gene was performed. It was demonstrated that Pacific herring from the seas of Eurasia belonged to one mitochondrial haplogroup. The gene flow between the localities from different parts of the Far Eastern sea basins was about 11% per locality, per generation, which led to constant leveling of herring intraspecific differentiation. The data presented gave no reasons for subdivision of the herring populations in accordance to ecological characters (lacustrine and marine). Analysis of global molecular variance (global AMOVA) demonstrated that in Asian water basins, more than 98% of molecular polymorphism was found within the samples at the low level of significance (p < 0.05).
