Fisheries shocks provide an opportunity to reveal multiple recruitment sources of sardine in the Sea of Japan.

The abrupt decline in sardine catches in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea (SJ-ECS) in 2014 and 2019 and the recovery in the following years call into question the current assumption that sardines in the SJ-ECS form a self-recruiting subpopulation. To test this hypothesis, we analysed otolith stable oxygen and carbon isotope profiles (δO, δC) of age-0 and age-1 sardines from 2010 and 2013-2015 year-classes captured in the SJ-ECS, as geographic markers for nursery areas. Age-0 sardines generally showed a significant ontogenetic decrease in otolith δO from larval to juvenile stages.

Highly sensitive sex determination method using the exon 1 region of the amelogenin gene.

Sex determination is a crucial factor in the identification of unidentified human remains. Sex determination by DNA analysis is particularly useful because it can be applied to samples for which morphological characteristics are unavailable. Because samples handled in forensic DNA typing are easily degraded by environmental factors and microorganisms, there is a need for a method that can accurately determine sex even in highly decayed samples.