such assingleeggs,embryo orlarva, andeven from
archived museum specimens.Additionally, avarie-
ty of DNA levelapproacheshavebeendeveloped
which allow forinvestigations whichfocus onchar-
acters whoserate ofchangevariesfromextremely
slow to exceedinglyrapid (Wirgin & Waldman
1994).This permits quantiification ofgenetic rela-
tionships extending from theinterspecific tointer-
individuallevels. We stronglyencourage the use of
nDNA-based approaches toresolvemanagement
questions concerning taxasuch asScaphirhynchus
in which lowlevels ofgeneticdiversity havebeen Acknowledgements
reported.Because of thepolyploidcharacter of the
acipenserid genome, it ishighly likelythatmany du- We thankPatrickWilliot for thetissuesample of
plicatedgenelocihavebeenrelieved offunctional EuropeanAtlanticsturgeon.Work wasfunded by
constraints and werefree torapidly evolve.Thus, theNationalOceanic and AtmosphericAdminis-
the nucleargenome ofsturgeonspeciesshould of- tration award # NA46RG0090 to the Research
fer a wealth ofrapidly evolvingsingle copy orrepet- Foundation of the StateUniversity of NewYork for-
itive DNAsequences foranalysis. the NewYork SeaGrantInstitute. TheU.S. Gov-
Severalotheravenues for futuremolecular re- ernment isauthorized toproduce anddistribute re-
search ofsturgeons and paddlefishes areapparent. prints for governmental purposes notwithstanding
Poaching ofthesefishes acrossNorthAmerica and any copyrightnotation that mayappearhereon.
Eurasia is a major threat totheir existence:much of Views expressed herein are those of the authors and
this illegalharvest issold in worldmarkets(Birstein do notnecessarilyreflect the views ofNOAA or any
1993,Bemis &Findeis1994). Astudy is now under- of its subagencies. Thiswork also wassupported by
way (DeSalle &Birstein1996) t odevelop forensic theU.S.Fish and WildlifeService andthe Hudson
molecularmarkers tohelp identifyillegally pro- River Foundation and NIEHS center grant
cured andmislabeledacipenseridproducts.Also, ES00260.
most acipenseriforms aredifficult to sexexcept at
spawning.Nonlethalmoleculargender determina-
tion, as hasbeendeveloped foroncorhynchustsha-
wytscha(chinook salmon, Devlin et al.1994), would
be useful for manymanagementpurposes.
Additionally, contaminant exposure has been
proposed as a major factor in the decline of certain
sturgeon populations (Birstein 1993). However,
quantitative data oncomparative exposure histo-
ries orpossible biologicaleffects arelargely lacking.
We suggest that a molecular biomarker approach,
in whichstructural alterations atanonymous genet-
tion. Thisapproach hasbeenused successfully to
quantify the exposurehistories of species such as
Parophrys vetulus (English sole. Stein et al. 1992)
and Microgadustomcod(Atlantictomcod,Wirgin
et al. 1994)fromNorth Americanestuaries. Fur-
thermore,increasedlevels ofgene expression infish
fromcontaminatedenvironments havebeen corre-
latedwith higherlevel biologicaleffects at the pop-
ulationlevel(Wirgin &Garte1994).ReferencescitedAdkinson,M.D.1996.Populationdifferentiation inPacificsalm-
on: localadaptation.geneticdrift. or theenvironment? Can. J.
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Allendorf,F.W. & N, Ryman1987.Genetic management of
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Barton, N.H. & M.Slatkin 1986 Aquasi-equilibriumtheory of
the distributions ofrarealleles in a subdividedpopulation.
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Bemis, W.E. &E.K.Findeis.1994 Thesturgeon’splight.Nature
370:602.
Bemis, W.E. & B. Kynard. 1997 Sturgeon rivers: an introduction
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Bernatchez, L.1995. Arole formolecularsystematics indefining
evolutionarilysignicantunits in fishes.Amer.Fish.Soc.
Symp.17:111–132.icloci orexpressionlevels ofxenobioticallyrespon-
sivegenes are quantified,can helpfillthis void. The
extent of DNAsequence variation at theseloci or
levels of expression of inducible genes such as cyto-
chromeP4501A o rmetallothionein canallow for a
comparison of theexposurehistories ofsturgeons
fromenvironments withdifferingdegrees of pollu-