A consistent dataset of bottom trawl survey data spanning 47 years in the Bay of Biscay was assembled. The dataset includes data from the current EVHOE survey from 1987 to 2019 and two previous surveys carried out in 1973 and 1976. The recent EVHOE time-series from 1997 is also available from DATRAS (https://www.ices.dk/data/data-portals/Pages/DATRAS.aspx). The catch in numbers and weight (kg) per haul of all Rajiformes species caught in these surveys is provided. Haul information is provided for all hauls, including those with no catch of Rajiformes. Areas of the sampling strata of the survey and spatial polygones of these strata are provided in separate files.

Input data, TMB (C++) and R code for close-kin mark recapture (CKMR) abundance estimation for two subpopulations of thornback ray (Raja clavata) in the central Bay of Biscay (offshore and Gironde estuary, see figure). Samples were taken between 2015 to 2020. Parent-offspring pairs were identified using SNP genotype information. Birth years of individuals were estimated using length information and growth curves by sex.

We genotyped 1680 thornback ray Raja clavata sampled in the Bay of Biscay using a DNA chip described in Le Cam et al. (2019). After quality control 4604 SNPs were retained for identifying potential sex-linked SNPs using three methods: i) identification of excess of heterozygotes in one sex, ii) FST outlier analysis between the two sexes and iii) neuronal net modelling. Genotype coding: 0 homozygous for major allele, 1 heterozygous, 2 homozygous for minor allele. Flanking DNA sequences of SNPs identified with methods i) and ii) are also provided.  

We developed a panel of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for thornback ray Raja clavata using a RADSeq protocole. Demultiplexed sequences were aligned to the genome of Leucoraja erinacea which was used as reference genome. From an initial set of 389 483 putative SNPs, 7741 SNPs with the largest minor allele frequency were selected for implementation on an Infinium® XT iSelect-96 SNP-array implemented by LABOGENA DNA. For the array, SNPs [T/C] and [T/G] were replaced by those from the complementary strand [A/G] and [A/C] respectively. For some SNPs, a second SNP was found in the 50 nucleotide bases flanking sequence. In these cases, two SNP probes were developed with each of the two alleles of the second SNP. A SNP probe naming convention was adopted to identify these pairs of probes corresponding to the same SNP locus: “MAJ” or “MIN” followed by the corresponding base was included in the probe name. For some of these pairs, only one of the two markers could be developed, resulting in a total set of 9120 SNP probes, including 6360 single SNP probes, 10 MAJ or MIN probes for which a single probe was successfully developed, and 1375 pairs of probes with MAJ and MIN versions. The 9120 SNP genotypes were then scored using the clustering algorithm implemented in the Illumina® GenomeStudio Genotyping Analysis Module v2.0.3 for 7726 individual samples, including duplicates, mostly from the Bay of Biscay but also from the Mediterranean Sea and West Iberia. Overall, 1643 SNPs failed to be genotyped in all individuals, for 319 markers the minor allele was not found and 7158 markers (including 1974 for 987 MIN-MAJ pairs) produced bi-allelic genotypes. The majority of these SNPs had a minor allele frequency between 0.1 and 0.5. The MIN-MAJ probes can be used for quality checking the genotyping results