Crossing the pond: genetic assignment detects lobster hybridisation

Abstract

American lobsters (Homarus americanus) imported live into Europe as a seafood commodity have occasionally been released or escaped into the wild, within the range of an allopatric congener, the European lobster (H. gammarus). In addition to disease and competition, introduced lobsters threaten native populations through hybridisation, but morphological discriminants used for species identification are unable to discern hybrids, so molecular methods are required. We tested an array of 79 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for their utility to distinguish 1,308 H. gammarus from 38 H. americanus and 30 hybrid offspring from an American female captured in Sweden. These loci provide powerful species assignment in Homarus, enabling the robust identification of hybrid and American individuals among a survey of European stock. Moreover, a subset panel of the 12 most powerful SNPs is sufficient to separate the two pure species, even when tissues have been cooked, and can detect the introduced component of hybrids. We conclude that these SNP loci can unambiguously identify hybrid lobsters that may be undetectable via basic morphology, and offer a valuable tool to investigate the prevalence of cryptic hybridisation in the wild. Such investigations are required to properly evaluate the potential for introgression of alien genes into European lobster populations.