Genetic Diversity and Differentiation of Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) in the southern part of Caspian Sea by using microsatellite markers

Eight microsatellite loci were used for analysing eight populations of common carp (Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus 1758) in Iranian waters of the Caspian Sea. Mean expected heterozygosity within populations ranged from 0.21 to 0.92, and the mean number of effective alleles per population ranged from 1.26 to 12.25. Of the analysed loci, 9 out of 64 possible tests were found to deviate significantly (P 0.05) from the Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. A low level of population differentiation (FST) was observed among populations; however, significant differentiation was evident between some populations (p 0.05). An analysis of the distribution of genetic variation indicated within population variation is very high (90.0%), while among populations within groups and among groups is low (3.0% and 1.0% respectively). Phylogenetic neighbor-joining tree analysis showed that the south western populations are closely related to the south middle populations, and the Tajan River population is not closely related to any other carp populations. Thus, the microsatellite markers used in the present study demonstrated significant importance in monitoring the genetic diversity of the common carp. In addition, our results proved the efficiency of the conservation programme and highlighted the need for better control of genetic variability in the common carp populations in the Caspian Sea.