Analysis of Microsatellite Loci for Swimming Crab Portunus trituberculatus Populations in the Korean Side of the Yellow Sea

Abstract

The swimming crab, Portunus trituberculatus, inhabits seafloor habitats containing sand or pebbles and is widely distributed throughout the world. The present study investigated genetic polymorphisms of 10 microsatellites in 281 samples of P. trituberculatus collected from four locations along the coastal water of the Korean side of the Yellow Sea (Yeonggwang, Taean, Sorea, and Yeonpyeong-do Island). The number of alleles per locus ranged from 50 to 129, with a mean of 69.5. The observed and expected hetrozygosity varied from 0.111 to 1.000 and from 0.609 to 0.979, respectively. The inbreeding coefficients (Fis) varied among the loci from -0.0207 to 0.8175. The genetic differentiation (Fst) was less than 0.05 (range 0.0020-0.0124). Therefore, the four groups of P. trituberculatus appeared to exhibit little genetic differentiation. The lack of differentiation was confirmed in a phylogenetic tree constructed by the unweighted pair group method with the arithmetic average (UPGMA). The hypervariation between the populations and the lack of genetic differentiation may reflect active gene flow among the Yellow Sea populations and the absence of geographical boundaries. The highly polymorphic microsatellite loci will be useful for molecular and phylogenetic studies, as well as stock management, of swimming crab, which is an important fishery resource.

Genetic population structure in the swimming crab,Portunus trituberculatusand its implications for fishery management

“…This species is one of the most common edible crabs and has been artificially propagated and stocked with more than 100,000 tons of product per year in China (according to China fisheries yearbook 2016). Because of its economic value, the population genetic structures of P. trituberculatus have been studied using different molecular marker systems (Imai et al ., 1999; Cho et al ., 2009; Liu et al ., 2009, 2012; Xu et al ., 2009; Dong et al ., 2013; Lee et al ., 2013) with respect to genetic diversity and stock identification. Most of these analyses, however, have mainly focused on restricted areas or have been performed based on limited number of samples.…”