Ghislaine Cattaneo-Berrebi

The genetic diversity of native, stocked and hybrid populations of marble trout in the Soca river, Slovenia.

The marble trout (Salmo marmoratus) is an endangered species in Slovenia (and in Italy, Croatia and Albania) because of hybridization resulting from intensive stocking. Eleven populations of trout from the Soca river basin (Slovenia) were analysed using 31 presumptive enzyme loci. Three European control samples representing the main European genotypes of brown trout were also analysed. This analysis confirmed the existence of extensive hybridization in the main river, resulting in an equal mixture of alleles belonging to marble trout, and Danubian and Atlantic brown trout (Salmo trutta). Despite the high level of introgression observed in the main Soca River, nearly pure populations of marble trout were found in the headwaters of five tributaries. The five stations with pure marble trout will be the basis of a rehabilitation programme. Hardy–Weinberg and linkage disequilibria were observed and hypotheses are discussed to explain this. A scenario for the colonization of the Adriatic region is proposed.

Intron polymorphism (EPIC-PCR) reveals phylogeographic structure of Zacco platypus in China: a possible target for aquaculture development

The present study aims at a phylogeographic description of Zacco platypus from southeast China, in order to detect subdivisions within the nominal species. Two main basins were sampled: the Chang Jiang (Yangstze River) in central and east China (Hunan and Sichuan provinces) and the Xi Jiang, the more southern main tributary of the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River, Guangxi province). A total of 27 intron systems were tested, five of them were informative and gave 12 interpretable and polymorphic loci. Within the diversity of Z. platypus, four genetic groups were identified by multidimensional (FCA) analyses, corresponding to distinct genetic pools. The geographical distribution of the genetic groups corresponds neither with the drainage structure, nor the geographic distances between samples. It follows that isolation by distance and limited migration are insufficient to explain this geographic structure. The history of the river network therefore appears to have played an important role.

Interpopulation relationships in two species of Antarctic fish Notothenia rossii and Champsocephalus gunnari from the Kerguelen Islands: an allozyme study

Enzymatic polymorphism was used to detect variability within Notothenia rossii from two sites on the Kerguelen Plateau and Champsocephalus gunnari from the same sites and the South Orkney Islands. No polymorphism was found in the second species and it was low but not statistically significant in the first. This apparent homogeneity does not substantiate suggestions from other results that the populations can be separated, especially in the case of C. gunnari . Other approaches will be necessary to solve definitively the question of population separation.