Research Article: Comparison of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) fecundity in two provinces of the southern part of the Caspian Sea in relation to the genetic variations

To compare the fecundity of common carp in relation to their genetic variations in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces, sixty fish samples with 4-5 maturity stages cached from Guilan and Mazandaran provinces, 30 samples obtained from each interval during February 2018 to November 2018. DNA was extracted by phenol-chloroform method and investigated for 11 microsatellites loci. The mean of body weight, total length and age for Guilan and Mazandaran samples were 4.22±0.99 and 3.13±0.30 kg, 57.33±4.68 and 60.93±3.90 cm, 3.80±0.38 and 3.50±0.51 years, respectively. The mean absolute and relative fecundity of Guilan and Mazandaran samples were 239900±57921.67 and 139900±23008.76 as well as 57629.31±5583.58 and 43568.639±2129.45, respectively. The mean body height and eggs diameters measured were 17.50±2.06 and 14.60±1.42 cm as well as 0.759±0.11682 and 0.640±0.4291 mm, respectively. The mean of fecundity increased with increment of fish fork length, body weight and age. There were significant differences in fecundity rate between Guilan and Mazandaran samples. The results showed that the range of allele’s number, expected and observed heterozygosity were 11-18, 63%-86%, respectively. The Fst and Rst values were significantly different between fish populations in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces. These differences may be due to broodstocks transportation by farmers. Tree investigated loci showed significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (p 0.05), mostly due to the excess of heterozygosity of Mazandaran samples. The Fst value and Gen flow due to number of alleles were 14.5 and 2.11. So it can be concluded that there were significant differences between number of alleles and genetic diversity in Guilan and Mazandaran.