DefinePK

Abstract

ABSTRACT We examined the genetic diversity and genetic relationship of Yangtze River population with spotted (YS) and without spotted (YWS) population and five representative breeding populations, consisting of Huaihe (HH), Yellow River (YR), Taiwan (TW), Wubie (WB) and Japanese (JP) soft-shell turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) in mainland China. The microsatellite markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity of seven populations of Pelodiscus sinensis. The results showed that the 10 microsatellite markers had high polymorphism, with average alleles number (Na), expected heterozygosity (He), polymorphic information content (PIC) and Shannon information index (I) being equal to 14.3, 0.71, 0.68 and 1.79, respectively. The He of the seven populations was between 0.4768 and 0.7556, and the PIC was between 0.4363 and 0.6864, indicating that there were differences in genetic diversity among all populations. The level of genetic diversity was YWS> WB > TW > YS> YR > HH > JP. The value of genetic differentiation index (Fst) ranged from 0.00013 to 0.32091, indicating that all populations had different degrees of differentiation. The Fst values of these 10 microsatellite markers were all greater than 0.05, with an average value of 0.1297, which was consistent with the genetic differentiation among the populations. Molecular variation analysis (AMOVA) showed that inter-population variation accounted for 11.47%, inter-individual variation within a population accounted for 14.3% and intra-individual genetic variation accounted for 74.22% of total variation. The phylogenetic tree showed that the YS, YWS and WB populations were clustered together, TW and JP populations were clustered together, and HH and YR were clustered together, indicating that the YS, YWS and WB populations were closely related. The genetic structure analysis showed that all populations were divided into three theoretical populations. In addition, the results of genetic structure and phylogenetic analysis were consistent, indicating that YS, YWS and WB populations, HH and YR populations, and JP and TW populations had a close genetic relationship. The molecular markers are considered the effective tools for determining genetic diversity and population differentiation of P. sinensis.