The Network for the Aquatic Genetic Resources (NAGR) in Mexico is an inter-institutional and interdisciplinary network mainly composed of researchers to support the National Subsystem for Aquatic Genetic Resources (SUBNARGENA, whose name is Spanish) belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) of the government of Mexico. The SUBNARGENA’s main objective is to increase the knowledge and the conservation and sustainable use of Mexican biodiversity, primarily of that used as a food resource. The NAGR was founded in 2010, and one of its objectives is to genetically characterize key aquatic species. At that time, mitochondrial genomes and microsatellites were considered as main molecular markers used for genetic characterization. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has been used to obtain complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) from several fish, elasmobranchs, octopuses, and geoducks (Table 1). Microsatellites were also identified and sets of specific markers were developed and standardized for some species.
As the NGS tools have increased and the third-generation sequencing is widely available, the NAGR using new markers such as SNPs under different platforms for genetic characterization. In this talk, more options for the NAGR will be proposed for the genetical characterization of aquatic species submitted to the SUBNARGENA and few examples will be given.