ABSTRACT

he purpose of this project was to analyze the hypothesis of a single stock of Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) Sea bowhead whales using a new set of genetic markers: 18 loci of single nucleotide polymorphims (SNPs).  Current management of the BCB bowhead whales is done by the International Whaling Commission under the assumption that there is a single stock.  The goal of my SNPs analysis is to test this assumption.  Standard analyses of linkage disequilibrium, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, allele frequency distributions, and Fst were conducted, as well as a new analysis developed by Givens and Ozaksoy (2006) that utilizes generalized additive models to relate genetic correlation to a covariate.  The analyses were found to be non-significant , meaning that the SNPS data were consistent with the hypothesis of a single stock of BCB bowhead whales.  Thus, the SNPs data provide no reason to change current management practices.