A total of fourteen Artemia samples from Colombia, Venezuela, Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles), Puerto Rico, and reference samples from U.S.A. (San Francisco Bay, SFB) belonging to the superspecies Artemia franciscana, and Argentina (A. persimilis), were analysed with the RAPD technique in order to demonstrate genetic dissimilarities. Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the DNA banding patterns were calculated. They served as input values for the construction of UPGMA dendrograms. The results indicate that, within the collection of Colombian, Venezuelan and the two Netherlands Antilles Artemia cyst samples examined, two different groups seem to exist. Geographically, the mountainous area of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta separates these two groups (lower Caribbean to the South and middle Caribbean to the North). Although the Caribbean, North and South American populations belong to A. franciscana, genetic discontinuities are to be expected due to habitat differences and geographic isolation. The Sierra Nevada (with an altitude of about 5800 m) emerges as the barrier very likely to explain the observed RAPD differences. Little genetic variability was present in the Colombian samples from Manaure that were collected almost every ten years, nor in the samples from Galerazamba collected almost two decades apart, although these samples were more likely subjected to different prevailing environmental conditions. The SFB population did not show a very close relation with all Caribbean populations analyzed, including the Puerto Rican. All A. franciscana populations analyzed were divergent from A. persimilis (Argentina). |
