Heredity · 2026
Quantitative genetics and GWAS reveal population-specific sex-ratio responses in wild European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) under various temperature scenarios
European sea bass has polygenic sex determination, strongly influenced by temperature. By rearing offspring of its three populations under four thermal regimes, the study shows population-specific sex ratios and, in the Atlantic population only, a genomic region associated with sex.
- The question
- Do sex determination and its sensitivity to temperature differ between European sea bass populations?
- The approach
- Offspring of the Atlantic (AT), Western Mediterranean (WM) and Eastern Mediterranean (EM) populations reared under four thermal regimes: three mimicking these seas and a husbandry regime maximising females; quantitative genetics and a genome-wide association study (GWAS).
- What the article brings
- The Atlantic population has a relatively balanced sex ratio and more females than the other two; heritability of sex tendency, around 0.62, is consistent across populations and regimes; seven SNPs on linkage group 19 are associated with sex in the Atlantic population.
- The limits
- Results come from experimental conditions; the QTL region contains a gene involved in fish sex determination, without its role being demonstrated here, and no QTL is found in the two Mediterranean populations.
Figures from the article
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