Fisheries and Aquaculture Journal
Open Access

Abstract

An Analysis of Genetic Variability in Wild and Hatchery Populations of Swimming Crab (Portunus trituberculatus) Using AFLP Markers

Ling-Xiao Liu, Yun-Guo Liu and Shi-Chao Xing

The genetic variation of wild and hatchery populations of swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus based on observation of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was described. A group of 180 genotypes belonging to five wild samples, Dongying (DY), Weifang (WF), Weihai (WH), Qingdao (QD), Rizhao (RZ) and one hatchery population, Yantai (YT) were screened using eight different AFLP primer combinations. A total of 396 loci were screened in the six studied populations. 49.9%, 48.5%, 52.3%, 51.2%, 50.3% and 44.5% of these loci were polymorphic among the individuals tested in the DY, WF, WH, QD, RZ and YT populations, respectively. The number of polymorphic loci detected by single primer combinations ranged from 22 to 37. The average heterozygosity of the DY, WF, WH, QD, RZ and YT populations were 0.087, 0.085, 0.096, 0.092, 0.090 and 0.068, respectively. The WH population showed the highest genetic diversity in terms of total number of AFLP bands, total number of polymorphic bands, average heterozygosity and percentage of low frequency (0-0.2) polymorphic loci among all the populations, while the WF population was the lowest among the wild populations. Compared with the wild populations, the hatchery population showed a low genetic viability.