In line with the Working Group on Application of Genetics in Fisheries and Aquaculture’s (WGAGFA) research focus, which includes ecosystem-based fisheries and aquaculture management, conservation and biodiversity preservation and climate change forecasting, the scientific work presented in this report aims at i) exploring cutting-edge genomic advancements that show promise in realizing ICES vision, ii) facilitating the integration of genetic methods in fisheries and aquaculture management and iii) generating new genetic knowledge to better understand marine ecosystems. The specific questions addressed in the Terms of Reference tackled during this three-year term include the exploration of how genetic advances are revolutionizing stock identification, the review of the potential of adaptive variation for fisheries forecasting, the evaluation of the power of genetic tools to better understand the deep ocean and to explore the use of genetic methods for conservation program broodstocks. This work highlighted that despite the proven utility of genetics in fisheries stock delimitation and identification, DNA-based approaches are not routinely used, which could be due to a lack of understanding by stock assessment expert of genetic methods. Additionally, this work highlighted the power of using climate-associated adaptation information derived from genetic data to predict impact of climate change in marine species and develop consequent management measures, and the potential of a panoply of genetic methods to help understand the complex deep ocean at the individual, population, species, and ecosystem level. Concerning broodstock programs, our work reviews examples on how genetic gains are possible through genetically informed breeding and can be useful in long term conservation programs. Several review manuscripts derived from the Tors are in preparation and there will be a topic sheet and a scientific highlight produced. Future work should focus on continuing this discussion by including fisheries stock assessment and data collection experts as well as aquaculture researchers, which will be mandatory to ensure our results are applied in practice.
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