Analysis of genetic variation in selected stocks of hatchery flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus, using AFLP markers

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was performed in order to evaluate genetic characteristics of one common population and two selective hatchery populations of flounder Paralichthys olivaceus. A group of 60 genotypes belonging to three populations was screened using 10 different AFLP primer combinations. A total of 491 loci were produced in the three studied populations. The loci of 65.78%, 61.47% and 60.92% were polymorphic over all the genotypes tested in common, susceptible and resistant populations, respectively. The number of polymorphic loci detected by single primer combination ranged from 21 to 43. The average heterozygosity of common, susceptible and resistant populations was 0.1656, 0.1609 and 0.1586, respectively, which showed no significant difference. Compared with the common population, the two selective hatchery populations, susceptible and resistant, showed significant genetic differences including a smaller (P < 0.05) number of total loci, a smaller (P < 0.05) number of total polymorphic loci and a smaller (P < 0.05) percentage of low frequency (0-0.2) polymorphic loci. AFLP banding pattern was transformed into binary data and matrices were processed with POPGENE and TFPGA software. Similarity relationships were described graphically by a dendrogram, which clustered the three populations. The AFLP fingerprinting technique was confirmed to be a reproducible and sensitive tool for the study of population genetics of flounder. The present study confirmed that it was important to detect the genetic variability of the selective hatchery populations for the conservation of natural flounder resources.