Evaluation of genetic diversity of different colonies of common tern by using biochemical markers

• Main Authors: Sruoga, Aniolas, Kybartienė, L, Butkauskas, Dalius, Paulauskas, Algimantas, Mozalienė, Elena, Slavėnaitė, Sigita, Raudonikis, Liutauras, Sorokaitė, Jurgita
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Common tern (Sterna hirundo); Electrophoresis; Genetic distances; Genetic identit; Common tern; Sterna hirundo
• Online Access: http://lmavb.lvb.lt/LMAVB:ELABAPDB5436163&prefLang=en_US

Common tern (Sterna hirundo) is a widespread bird in Lithuania, but it is found only in wetlands: near rivers, lakes and the sea-coast. The biggest colonies are found in the islands of Lake Kretuonas, near the Kietaviškės ponds, at the Reservation of Žuvintas and on sandy islands of the Nemunas river. We studied three liver and heart enzyme systems: non-specific esterase (EST, 3.1.1.), malate dehydrogenase (MDH, 1.1.1.37), malic enzyme (ME, 1.1.1.40) and non-specific proteins (Np) of different colonies of common tern from 5 regions of Lithuania: Lazdijai, Nemunas, Kietaviškės, Kalviai and Papis. In the samples investigated, 7 loci were polymorphic and 5 monomorphic. The mean number of alleles per locus was 1.7-1.9 for all population. The mean values of expected heterozygosity (Hc) varied within 0.273 and 0.300, and the heterozygosity (Ho) was higher than 0.217-0.272. The highest heterozygote deficit (HD = -0.579) was detected for the Papis colony and the lowest (HD = -0.481) for the Kietaviškės colony. The highest homozygote deficit (HD = 0.383) was found in MDH-2 for the Kietaviškės colony. The phylogenetic analysis was based on Nei (1972) and Rogers (1972) genetic similarity and distance calculations. According to Nei's indices, the genetic similarity was highest between the colonies from Lazdijai and the Nemunas (0.990), Kietaviškės and Papis (0.983) and the lowest genetic similarity was calculated for colonies from Lazdijai and Papis (0.958).