Genetic differentiation between cultured and wild populations of Paralichthys olivaceus based on AFLP markers

• AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) marker was employed to examine the genetic differences between cultured and wild populations and genetic diversity of Paralichthys olivaceus.
• Pairwise Fst and AMOVA revealed significant genetic differentiation among them, indicating cultured populations exhibited distinctive heterogeneity with wild populations.
• The results of present study suggested that broods of this study should not be released into natural sea areas due to its genetic alterations.

Paralichthys olivaceus is a warm-temperature benthic species distributed in the western Pacific Ocean from the Kuril Islands, Japan to the South China Sea. In the present study AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) marker was employed to examine the genetic differences between cultured and wild populations of P. olivaceus. The results showed that the gene diversity and Shannon's information index of cultured populations (h = 0.130–0.150; I = 0.201–0.236) were similar with wild populations (h = 0.123–0.136; I = 0.199–0.220). Pairwise Fst and AMOVA revealed significant genetic differentiation among them, indicating cultured populations exhibited distinctive heterogeneity with wild populations. The results of present study suggested that broods of this study should not be released into natural sea areas due to its genetic alterations.