Microsatellites Variation in two Different Populations of Brown Trout (Salmo trutta, morpha fario, Linnaeus, 1758) from Făgăraş Mountains

Abstract

Salmonids are members of the Salmonidae family which includes the subfamily Coregoninae, subfamily Thymallinae and subfamily Salmoninae. This family includes fish of interest for aquaculture and sport fishing. The salmonids from the natural environment on Romanian territory are Salmo trutta fario, Salmo labrax, Salvelinus fontinalis fontinalis, Hucho hucho, and Thymallus thymallus. Gene flow from fishery populations to those in the natural habitat may create substantial problems to natural species which leads to a reduction of inherited genetic diversity and of environment adjustment due to a loss of natural capacity to adapt. Due their characteristics, microsatellites prove themselves usefull in population genetics studies. Aim of our study is to evaluate the genetic diversity of two populations of brown trout from Făgăraş Mountains using nuclear markers. For this purpose we analyzed the polymorphism of nine microsatellite loci (BS131, Str60, Str73, Str15, Str543, OmyFGT, Ssa85, Ssa197, Strutta12) in two brown trout population from Făgăraş Mountains. We successfully amplified all microsatellite loci obtaining allele peaks of different sizes. The number of allele ranged beetwen 1 (Str73) and 26 (OmyFGT). The analyzed trout populations show a relatively high degree of genetic diversity, being also characterized by a low level of inbreeding among individuals. This technology has great potential for investigating the genetic diversity of the wild population and, also, might be extended to aquaculture studies.

Keywords

• brown trout
• population
• genetic diversity
• microsatellites