Abstract:

Thirty microsatellite markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity of five Silver carp populations in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. A total of 144 different alleles were found and the number of alleles in each locus ranged from 1 to 10. Twenty-five loci(83.33%) were polymorphic. In the five populations, the average number of alleles was 4.0 to 4.1, the number of mean valid alleles was 2.4445 to 2.6332, the value of average observed and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.3233 to 0.3511 and 0.4421 to 0.4704, and the mean PIC was 0.4068 to 0.4286. Fst value in-dicated that the populations were moderately differentiated. Chi-square test was used to analyze the genotypes based on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the P value denoted that the five populations deviated equilibrium partially. The genetic simi-larity coefficient of the five populations was 0.8466 to 0.9146, and the genetic distance of the populations was 0.0893 to 0.1665. A UPGMA dendrogram was constructed based on Nei’s standard genetic distance for the five Silver carp populations.