Title: “Spatial and Temporal Scales of Genetic Change in Two Overfished

Pacific rockfishes (genus Sebastes) have attracted wide scientific and public interest from an evolutionary, fishery and conservation standpoints. This dissertation addresses several hypotheses involving spatial and temporal scales of genetic change in two overfished rockfishes, darkblotched (S. crameri) and canary rockfish (S. pinniger), using statistical analyses of genetic variation within microsatellite DNA. First, I isolate and characterize 9 polymorphic microsatellites from canary rockfish useful in at least 13 congeneric species. Second, I investigate spatial differentiation in darkblotched rockfish, and how pooling samples with few individuals affects estimates of genetic parameters. Results indicate (i) significant correlation between pairwise genetic and geographic distances (isolation-by-distance) among samples, implying that scales of larval dispersal are short, and (ii) using an absolute genetic distance to pool samples increases overall genetic differentiation and resolves deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium without creating data artifacts. Third, I report the variance effective population size (Ne) for darkblotched rockfish by measuring allele frequency shifts among six abundant cohorts. I obtained an estimat