Genetic variation of wild and cultured populations of the Kuruma prawn Marsupenaeus japonicus (Bate 1888) using microsatellites

The microsatellite DNA technique was used to detect the genetic variations between wild and cultured populations of Kuruma prawn Marsupenaeus japonicus Bate 1888. All the six microsatellite loci screened in this study showed high polymorphism for their PIC (0.6701–0.8989), which was much more than the standard value of 0.5. A total of 73 alleles were observed over six loci from 93 shrimps. The mean number of allele locus ranged from 9.83 (cultured) to 11.83 (wild). The number of effective alleles varied from 6.86 (cultured) to 8.58 (wild). The average of observed heterozygosity (H_o) of populations varied from 0.6935 (cultured) to 0.7370 (wild), and that of expected heterozygosity (He) was 0.8169 (wild) and 0.8209 (cultured). Tests of Hardy–Weinberg showed that these loci deviated significantly or highly significantly in one or both populations. Compared with the wild population, the cultured population showed little reduction in genetic variation. The total number of alleles (71, 59) was not significantly (P=0.296) different between wild and cultured populations. The paired‐samples t test of observed heterozygosity and expected heterozygosity implied that there was no significant difference (P=0.572 and 0.891 respectively) between wild and cultured populations. However, some rare allele loss might have occurred in the cultured population. A total of 14 unique alleles were found in the wild population, but only two unique alleles were observed in the cultured population. Therefore, there is a need to monitor genetic variability of cultured population, and to improve the hatchery program for the conservation of wild Kuruma prawn resources.