Assessment of genetic variability in captive and wild American mink (Mustela vison) using microsatellite markers

Abstract

Belliveau, A. M., Farid, A., O'Connell, M. and Wright, J. M. 1999. Assessment of genetic variability in captive and wild American mink (Mustela vison) using microsatellite markers. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 79: 7-16. The genetic variability of 212 black mink from four ranches, and 20 each from wild mink trapped in Eastern Canada, pastel and brown (wild-type) was assessed using seven microsatellite loci. The average number of alleles per locus and expected heterozygosity (H E ) in the entire sample were 6.57 and 0.63, respectively. The estimates of H E were comparable among the black mink herds (0.53 to 0.61), and between black and the wild mink (0.50), indicating a considerable level of genetic variability within black mink, despite high levels of uniformity that have been achieved in fur quality traits as a result of many years of intense selection. Brown mink had the highest H E among populations (0.65), which could be the cause or the effect of their higher vigor and reproductive performance compared with the black mink. All the populations showed a higher level of homozygosity than expected from the Hardy-Weinberg (H-W) proportions at several loci (positive F IS ), perhaps as a result of linebreeding and positive assortative mating commonly used in the mink industry. Excess of homozygosity in the wild mink may indicate breeding between related individuals occupying adjacent territories, and a limited movement of mink in the wild. The black mink herds were closely related to each other, as were the pastel and brown. Gene flow from common sources to all the herds and infusion of the Jetblack allele into all the ranches were likely the causes of relatedness of the black mink herds. The black mink herds were more closely related to the wild mink than to the colored mink. This panel of microsatellites correctly classified black and nonblack mink into their respective groups with 91 to 97% accuracy. Between 70 and 88% of the black mink were correctly assigned into their herd of origin.

Population genetic structure and distribution of introduced American mink (Mustela vison) in Spain, based on microsatellite variation

“…Ten polymorphic microsatellite loci which have been isolated in Mustelidae species (O'Connell et al 1996;Fleming et al 1999) have been selected to genotype each sampled mink ( Table 1). Some of these loci already proved informative in M. lutreola (Peltier and Lodé 2003) and captive M. vison (Belliveau et al 1999) genetic diversity and variability studies. PCR amplification of microsatellites was performed as follows: first denaturation at 95°C for 1 min, 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°C (20 s), annealing at 55-58°C (20 s) and extension at 74°C (20 s), followed by a final extension at 72°C ranging from 10 to 30 min.…”

“…Genetic studies based on mitochondrial DNA sequences have been conducted to identify mustelid species by analysis of DNA extracted from faecal samples (Hansen and Jacobsen 1999;GomezMoliner et al 2004), and to highlight the phylogeography of the European mink (Davison et al 2000), while microsatellite genotyping has been used to survey genetic diversity and population history of M. lutreola populations (Peltier and Lodé 2003;Michaux et al 2004Michaux et al , 2005, of other mustelidae species (M. nigripes, M. eversmanni, M. putorius: Wisely et al 2002) and to investigate variability in captive M. vison (Belliveau et al 1999). A rich library of microsatellite loci exists on M. vison (O'Connell et al 1996;Brusgaard et al 1998a-c, Davis andStrobeck 1998;Fleming et al 1999;Vincent et al 2003;Anistoroaei et al 2006), although not all loci have proved to be polymorphic and informative or have been tested on populations.…”

Genetic analysis of ten sheep breeds using microsatellite markers

“…The assignment test has been proven to be a powerful method for identifying the population membership of individuals in livestock (Buchanan et al 1994;Belliveau et al 1999), fish (Estoup et al 1998) and wildlife (Paetkau et al 1995;Reed et al 1997;Simonsen et al 1998). As expected, the number of animals from each breed that was misassigned to other breeds was inversely related to the genetic distances between the breeds.…”

Variability of thirteen microsatellite markers in American mink (Mustela vison)

“…Black mink originated from four large breeding ranches in Nova Scotia, and were unrelated to each other for at least one generation. Samples of pastel and brown mink were from large-size breeding ranches in Prince Edward Island, and wild mink had been trapped in a 40 km 2 area in northern New Brunswick (Belliveau et al 1999). Genotyping was performed using an ABI Prism 377 DNA sequencer equipped with the GeneScan and Genotyper software (Applied Biosystems, Inc., Foster City, CA).…”