The genetic relationship between extirpated and contemporary Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. lines from the southern Baltic Sea

• Published in: Genetics Selection Evolution
• Main Authors: Bernaś, Rafał, Poćwierz-Kotus, Anita, Dębowski, Piotr, Wenne, Roman
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Atlantic salmon; Salmo salar
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341363; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341363/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01341363/file/12711_2016_Article_208.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-016-0208-y

International audience Background The genetic relationship between original Atlantic salmon populations that are now extinct in the southern Baltic Sea and the present-day populations has long been controversial. To investigate and clarify this issue, we successfully genotyped individuals of the historical populations from the Oder and Vistula Rivers using DNA extracted from dried scales with the Atlantic salmon single nucleotide polymorphism array.ResultsOur results showed a global FST of 0.2515 for all pairs of loci, which indicates a high level of genetic differentiation among the groups analyzed in this study. Pairwise FST values were significant for all comparisons and the highest values were found between present-day reintroduced Slupia River salmon and extinct Vistula River Atlantic salmon. Bayesian analysis of genetic structure revealed the existence of substructures in the extirpated Polish populations and three main clades among studied stocks.ConclusionsThe historical salmon population from the Oder River was genetically closer to present-day salmon from the Neman River than to the historical salmon from the Vistula River. Vistula salmon clearly separated from all other analyzed salmon stocks. It is likely that the origins of the Atlantic salmon population from the Morrum River and the Polish historical native populations are different.