Genetic Variation in a Bottlenecked Endemic Species of Darter (Etheostoma Moorei) of the Little Red River, Arkansas

	Texas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society

From the 2000 Joint Meeting of the Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas Chapters of the American Fisheries Society held in Bossier City, Louisiana.

Genetic Variation in a Bottlenecked Endemic Species of Darter (Etheostoma Moorei) of the Little Red River, Arkansas

Ronald L. Johnson, Richard Mitchell, and George L. Harp Biology Department, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

Seventeen presumptive loci were analyzed for 85 individuals of E. moorei, a darter species subjected to severe habitat and numerical decline, to determine the genetic diversity. Number of alleles per locus (1.3), heterozygosity (0.055) and polymorphism (27.7%) values were favorable comparable to fishes in general and darters in particular. Of greater concern is the high number of polymorphic loci in Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium (32%), indicative of populations undergoing genetic change. Several causative explanations were investigated with genetic drift and natural selection being the most plausible hypotheses. As these populations continue to bottleneck, loss of genetic diversity appears imminent.

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