Genetically distinct sympatric populations of resident and anadromous Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar

Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from Little Gull Lake on the Gander River system of central Newfoundland were found to be electrophoretically polymorphic at 5 of 20 protein loci screened. Four of the polymorphic loci were structural and one was regulatory. Major heterozygote deficiencies relative to C...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Journal of Zoology
Main Authors: Verspoor, E., Cole, L. J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1989
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/47678/
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/47678/1/Verspoor.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1139/z89-206
Description
Summary:Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from Little Gull Lake on the Gander River system of central Newfoundland were found to be electrophoretically polymorphic at 5 of 20 protein loci screened. Four of the polymorphic loci were structural and one was regulatory. Major heterozygote deficiencies relative to Castle–Hardy–Weinberg expectations were detected at the two most polymorphic loci, Aat-3 and Mdh-3,4, and significant nonrandom associations between genotypes at these loci and the other polymorphic loci, Sdh-1, Me-2, and Pgm1-t, were also found. The heterozygote deficiencies and the nonrandom genotype associations were attributable to the admixture of genetically distinct gene pools of resident and anadromous salmon in the lake. This is the first documented case of coexistence of reproductively separated populations of Atlantic salmon of the two life history types, and shows that the sympatric occurrence of the two forms can represent between-population variation.