Investigation and determination of population structure of parthenogenetic artemia (Bowen and Sterling, 1978) in the Inche Lake using PCR-RFLP

In order to determine the population structure of artemia in the Inche Lake in the Golestan Province sampling was carried out in three regions of the Lake. Northern، middle and south ern parts of the Lake were the sampling locations. 66 specimens were collected from the sampling sites. mtDNA was extracted by phenol-chloroform method. Genetic variation investigated using COI gene segment. COI segment then was amplified with primers. PCR product with 720bp was digested with 10 restriction enzymes namely as: RsaI، MspI، MboI، HinfI، HindIII، HaeIII، Eco471، EcoRI، AluI، TaqI. Three out of 10 Enzymes (HaeIII، RsaI، and AluI) could demonstrate the polymorphism. RFLP analysis shows 9 different haplotypes of the samples. Haplotype variation among the samples collected from the north، middle، and south part of the Lake was 0. 580±0. 0110، 0. 588±0. 114، 0. 571±0. 105 respectively. Nucleotide variation among the samples collected from the north، middle، and south part of the Lake was 0. 024، 0. 025، and 0. 015 respectively with 0. 021±0. 0000111 as average. Also the nucleotide variation between the samples collected from the north، middle، and south part of the Lake was 0. 0233 and the nucleotide differences between populations was 0. 0016. Haplotype frequency (X2) between populations was 23. 75. Monte Carlo analysis with 1000 repeats was X2 =0. 057±0. 007. This indicates that there is no significant difference between haplotypes frequency of the samples. Therefore there is only one population of parthenogenetic artemia in the Inche Lake.