engleski

GENETIC STRUCTURE OF THE NOBLE CRAYFISH ( ASTACUS ASTACUS L.) POPULATIONS IN BALKANS REVEALED BY MICRO SATELLITE DNA MARKERS

The noble crayfish probably survived the last glaciation on the Balkan Peninsula where up to three glacial refugia hav e been suggested (western and southern Balkans, and the eastern Black Sea basin). However, the number of populations and the number of loci for microsatellite analysis in western Balkans was rather low in these studies in order to reveal the local hotspots of genetic diversity and to define south - eastern European management units. In this study we used 418 crayfish from 18 populations (17 from the Danube, Black Sea basin and one population from the Adriatic Sea basin) and 16 recently developed microsatellit e loci to study genetic diversity and population structure of the noble crayfish in the western Balkans and the eastern Black Sea basin. We revealed high genetic diversity and differentiation among populations ( F ST =0.498) and relatively low diversity withi n populations. Contrary to the expectations, the highest differentiation was observed between the two sea basins (average pair - wise F ST =0.665 ; 160 and 12 private alleles in the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea basins, respectively) and not between the wester n Balkans and the eastern Black Sea basin (average pair - wise F ST =0.564 ; 142 and 2 private alleles, respectively). The Bayesian STRUCTURE analysis revealed 11 genetic clusters that can be used for defining management and conservation units. However, the eas tern Black Sea basin populations from Romania did not represent a distinct genetic cluster as could have been expected based on the results of the previous studies.

genetic diversity, differentiation, glacial refugia, the Danube, Black Sea, Ad riatic Sea

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