Abstract

In this study we examined the ability of a new molecular technique, Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs), to discriminate among various populations of an abundant crayfish from Missouri. The AFLP technique was developed back in 1995 and combines restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), a technique familiar to most researchers, with the ease of use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The study described here was initiated to see if AFLP variation could be detected among population samples of the golden crayfish, Orconectes luteus. We also wanted to investigate the usefulness of this new technique in recovering crayfish population histories as well as estimating critical population genetic parameters (such as migration rates and F-statistics). In order to examine population relatedness the results from the AFLP analyses were compared to those obtained using sequence data from the mitochondrial 16s gene. Overall the AFLP results were similar to those obtained from sequence data but differed slightly in recovering population relationships. We also noted that conventional AFLP banding patterns (i.e., large proportion of shared fragments among individuals) were not observed suggesting that additional testing of the AFLP method should be conducted in crayfish.

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