Genetic diversity of walking catfish, Clarias macrocephalus, in Thailand and evidence of genetic introgression from introduced farmed C. gariepinus

The Thai walking catfish, Clarias macrocephalus Günther, 1864, is economically important to Thailand. It occupies marshes and swamps that are severely endangered due to population expansion and natural populations are thought to be suffering from massive back-crossing with the C. macrocephalus×C. gariepinus hybrids. Therefore, a study on genetic diversity of this species is required to enable efficient conservation and management plans. In this study, 25 natural populations were collected throughout the country, 12 populations from provinces locate in the Chaophraya river basin in the center of the country, 5 from the Mekong river basin, 1 from the east and 7 from the south. One population of hatchery origin was obtained from the Department of Aquaculture, Kasetsart University in Bangkok.

Twelve isozymes and one protein system were analyzed. Among 18 loci resolved, 8 were polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus, average polymorphism and individual polymorphism were significantly higher in collections from the Chaophraya river basin than from the Mekong, east and south. The hatchery population also had relative high genetic variation. Six out of twenty-six populations differed significantly from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium after Bonferroni correction. None of loci pairs showed significant linkage disequilibrium after Bonferroni correction. The F_st value across loci was highly significant from zero. A neighbor-joining tree reveals that populations from the south were genetically distinct from the remaining populations.

Alleles peculiar to the African catfish [C. gariepinus (Burchell, 1822)] genome were observed in 12 of the natural populations and the hatchery population. This is evidence of genetic introgression which has probably persisted for several generations, since there was no significant genotype disequilibrium between the macrocephalus and gariepinus alleles at three diagnostic loci.     

Genetic diversity of wild mekong giant catfish Pangasianodon gigas collected from Thailand and Cambodia

The Mekong giant catfish Pangasianodon gigas is endemic to the Mekong River and is a critically endangered species. The genotypes of the microsatellite DNA (msDNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) markers (right domain of the control region) were detected to evaluate the present status of genetic divergence of this species from the Mekong River in Thailand and Cambodia. The observed and expected heterozygosity values of Mekong giant catfish in Thailand and Cambodia were relatively low in comparison with those of other nonendangered freshwater fish species. These two populations from Thailand and Cambodia showed similar levels of genetic diversity, as evaluated by the 384 nucleotides of the mtDNA control region with 13 haplotypes. The pairwise F _ST value between the two populations based on the genotype frequencies of msDNA and mtDNA markers suggested a close genetic relationship between the populations in Thailand and Cambodia. The results of this study support the conclusion that the Mekong giant catfish is critically endangered. Care should be taken to sustain the genetic diversity of this species, as the level of genetic variability has already decreased in the wild population. This species is a target species for an ongoing stock enhancement program in the Mekong River in Thailand. It is proposed to apply these markers for proper broodstock management, such as for minimal kinship selective breeding in the hatchery.     

Temporal genetic heterogeneity of juvenile orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides, Pisces: Serranidae)

Juveniles of orange-spotted grouper ( Epinephelus coioides ), a tropical serranid species, are heavily harvested for aquaculture seeds from nursing grounds in several Southeast Asian countries. Because juveniles of similar sizes are present in a nursery area throughout the year, we aimed to determine whether more than one genetically distinct population contributes to juvenile aggregations. We examined the temporal genetic heterogeneity of juvenile aggregations collected at four different times of the year at a nursery area in coastal waters of the Andaman Sea in Trang province, Thailand. Also, we examined the differences between these temporal samples and an outgroup collected from the Gulf of Thailand (Chantaburi). The genetic variation at six polymorphic microsatellite loci within each sample was moderate, with observed heterozygosities across all loci ranging from 0.551 to 0.629 and number of alleles per locus ranging from 7.0 to 8.33. Results indicated substantial genetic differences between the two geographically distant samples, Trang and Chantaburi (F_st=0.040–0.050, P <0.005), and between the July sample and the remaining samples from Trang (F_st=0.096–0.106, P <0.005). The observed temporal genetic heterogeneity of E. coioides juveniles may reflect high variability in the reproductive success of each spawning event and the existence of spatially isolated groups of spawners.