Genetic Variability in Farmed Brood Stocks of the Siberian Sturgeon in Poland

Abstract

The Siberian sturgeon Acipenser baerii is one of the most common and most important sturgeon species cultured in Europe, being the main source of sturgeon meat and black caviar produced by large fish farms and international aquaculture companies. The present paper describes the genetic characteristics of Siberian sturgeon Acipenser baerii brood stock from the Polish fish farm. The genetic analysis, based on six polymorphic microsatellite DNA analysis, revealed a high level of genetic diversity in studied broodstock of Siberian sturgeon (PIC = 0.504–0.837 and I = 1.036–2.150). The observed values of allelic richness (Ar) varied from 6.000 to 13.500 in examined fish group. Observed (Ho) and expected (He) heterozygosity across the studied loci showed values from 0.723 to 1.000 and from 0.586 to 0.857, respectively. Overall, the examined broodstock were not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (H-WE), where five of the six microsatellite loci deviated from H-WE. The estimated effective population size (Ne) values by the linkage disequilibrium and the molecular coancestry methods were at the level of 47.3 (95% CI = 39.6–57.2) and 41.3 (95% CI = 3.0–128.7), respectively. A total number of 38 rare alleles within investigated microsatellite loci were found, which consisted 51% of qualitative composition of all detected alleles. All the analyzed genetic indicators suggested the good genetic condition and high genetic value of studied Siberian sturgeon farmed broodstock.