Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to score for genetic variation in 35 loci in Svalbard reindeer, Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus, and in reindeer, Rangifer tarandus tarandus, from two localities in northern Norway. In R. t. platyrhynchus the proportion of polymorphic loci was 0.114 and the average heterozygosite was 0.030. In R. t. tarandus the proportion of polymorphic loci was 0.171–0.286 and the average heterozygosity was 0.043–0.045. Excluding the variability in the locus coding for transferrin from calculations reduced the average heterozygosity to 0.020 in R. t. platyrhynchus and to 0.021–0.025 in R. t. tarandus, suggesting that the amount of genetic variation in R. t. platyrhynchus is not very different from that in R. t. tarandus. Unique alleles in the loci coding for transferrin and acid phosphatase for the two subspecies indicate that there has been no interbreeding in recent time. The genetic distance between the two subspecies is within the same range as between subspecies of other organisms. Evolutionary divergence time based on the protein data indicates that either the divergence between these subspecies was initiated a very long time ago or R. t. platyrhynchus originates from other subspecies of reindeer.

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Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to analyse transferrin variation in caribou from the Canadian Arctic islands. Sixteen alleles were detected in Peary caribou (Rangifer tarandus pearyi). The most common allele was TfG2, which increased in frequency from 0.167 at the Boothia Peninsula to 0.236 in the Peel population and 0.340 in the Parry population. The presence of this allele, which is the most common allele in Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus) and not detected in Norwegian reindeer (R. t. tarandus), suggests a common origin for the Peary caribou and the Svalbard reindeer. The large genetic distance in the transferrin locus between continental and island populations suggests the isolation of a High Arctic population in a northern refugium during the Wisconsin glaciation.

Blood samples from 928 reindeer from five semi‐domestic and three wild populations of reindeer, Rangifer tarandus L., from southern Norway were analysed for transferrin variability by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. A total of 12 alleles were detected, and in all populations the number of alleles was high, ranging from eight to eleven. The mean value of heterozygosities was approximately the same for semi‐domestic (0.778) and wild (0.770) populations. The pattern of allele frequency distribution indicates a high degree of genetic heterogeneity in the transferrin locus and each population revealed significant differences for at least one allele between all pairs of combinations. Using a hierarchical approach, 45% of the heterogeneity between populations was explained by dividing into semi‐domestic and wild animals. The major contributor to the divergence was the Tfct allele which changed in frequency from a mean (±SD) of 0.331 (±0.040) in semidomestic herds, to 0.167 (±0.045) in wild populations. These results suggest that the different selection strategies in the management of semi‐domestic and wild reindeer influence the transferrin allele frequencies.