Avaliação da estrutura genética do surubim, Pseudoplatystoma corruscans (Actinopterygii: Siluriformes) como subsídio para o repovoamento do submédio São Francisco

Abstract

The São Francisco River is 2700 km long, draining areas of the States of Minas Gerais, Goias, Bahia, Pernambuco, Alagoas, and Sergipe, as well as part of the Federal District. Before the construction of Paulo Afonso Hydroeletric Power Plant, waterfalls of Paulo Afonso (north-eastern Brazil) and its respective lakes already constituted a natural obstacle to fish migration. Nowadays, the construction of hydroelectric dams between medium and submedium São Francisco River associated flooding along rivers, pollution and the introduction of exotic species can alter ecosystems and pose serious threats to native aquatic species, especially those that perform migration for reproduction. One of the most threatened fish migratory species is the Pseudoplatystoma corruscans, a catfish species, locally named surubim. The surubim is the first predator of São Francisco River and it is considered the most appreciated freshwater fish on the north-eastern Brazil. The conservation of freshwater fish species has traditionally been done thought restocking programs. Genetic variability is essential to maintain the capability of restocked fish to adapt to a changing environment. Therefore, if long term persistence of species is the goal that conservation biology is intending to achieve, genetic variability is of the utmost importance to preserve. One approach that have been successfully used in uncovering cryptic population structure in freshwater is microsatellite markers. Samples from three populations were analyzed for six different microsatellite markers. PCR products were separated by agarose gel electrophoresis and stained with silver nitrate. The results showed a wide diversity of alleles for all populations, where a total of 47 alleles were found. The expected heterozygosities showed an average of 0.7498 for the population of Remanso, 0.7142 for the population of Três Marias and 0.7372 for the population of Bom Jesus da Lapa. The average observed heterozygosity were 0.7170, 0.6643 and 0.7132 for the populations of Remanso, Três Marias and Bom Jesus da Lapa respectively. All populations showed loci in deviation from Hardy-Weinberg, but locus Pcor2 was the only one who showed deviation in all populations. The average values of FIS was 0.0348 in Remanso, 0.0583 in Três Marias and 0.0160 in Bom Jesus da Lapa. The fixation index FST obtained was 0.0246, indicating a small degree of differentiation between the populations studied. The universe of alleles shared among populations associated with the low value of FST indicates that this is a panmitic population. These results indicated that breeders can be São Francisco River basin, saving time in restocking programs in terms of growing fish. Hence, this study can now be used as a parameter for the construction of the founder stock to be used in restocking programs or in evaluating the genetic structure of existing stocks founders, as well as monitoring offspring from these programs.