Genetic variation between populations of starspotted dogfish Mustelus manazo in central Japan and northern Taiwan

Abstract

The genetic structure of the samples of Mustelus manazo between central Japan and Taiwan was investigated by starch gel electrophoresis. From a total of 20 enzyme loci scored, only two of them (CK-A and sSOD-1) showed polymorphism with sufficient allelic variation that would be useful for analysis of population structure. The Taiwanese samples have unique allele of CK-A 52 and sSOD-1 40 that are absent in the Japanese samples. Mean heterozygosity values were 0.027 and 0.055 for two Taiwanese samples and 0.008 and 0.013 for two Japanese samples. The chi-square analysis shows significant differences (P<0.001) between the pooled central Japanese samples and Taiwanese samples indicating that they are two separate populations with moderate divergence (FST= 0.063). A possible explanation of population divergence between the two countries is also discussed.