Microsatellite marker Based Genetic Monitoring of Exotic Common Carp Strains (Cyprinus carpio L. and Cyprinus carpio communis) in the Chenab River, Punjab, Pakistan

Conservation and management of Native fauna require understanding of invasive species genetic structure and diversity. Genotyping with 10 microsatellite markers was used to evaluate 300 samples of common carp and scale carp ( Cyprinus carpio L. and Cyprinus carpio communis ) from five natural populations on River Chenab in Pakistan. These strains exhibit low to moderate level of heterozygosities. The average FIS for C. carpio was 0.507 to 0.5914 while in C. c. communis , ranged from 0.5310 to 0.6166. The FST assessments showed there was a modest degree of genetic difference between the strains. Genetic distance was largest among strains and lowest among strain populations. AMOVA showed that 90.38% of C. carpio ’s variants were from intra-population variability and 9.62% from inter-population diversity. In C. c. communis , intra-population diversity fluctuated 12.92% and inter-population diversity 87.08%. STRUCTURE Bayesian clustering analysis grouped both strains populations into 10 groups. No genetic evidence of mixing was found for pristine, original strains. A high heterozygosity relative to expected heterozygosity in common carp strain populations suggests a bottleneck. The common carp strains' directional relative migratory network showed that HT (C.c) was the core population with the most genetic exchange with the other 5 peripheral populations. Nevertheless, no C.c. communis population showed migration event except HK C.c.c. Unweighted pair group method with averages (UPGMA) dendrogram shown two clusters: common carp and scale carp. We believe our findings may strengthen exotic species management practices.