IDENTIFICATION OF THE MITTEN CRAB ERIOCHEIR SINENSIS POPULATIONS USING RAPD MARKERS

The mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis is cultured extensively in coastal areas of China. Three populations named as Oujiang, Liaohe and Yangtze with different commercial traits are morphologically difficult to distinguish. RAPD was applied to the identification of Eriocheir sinensis populations mentioned above. Among 200 random primers screened, two primers (HX01 and HX02) generate a fragment M r(HX01) = 0.4 kb and M r(HX02) = 0.7 kb respectively in both Oujiang and Liaohe populations while they are absent in Yangtze population. Both fragments are reproducible under the 50 % changes of the template DNA concentration, or 25 % changes of the MgCl 2 and primer concentrations, and are selected as identification markers for Yangtze population. Using those markers, we found that only 29.3 % of the 41 samples from seed crab farms in Jiangsu and Anhui were identified to be Yangtze population as they were declared. No markers were found to distinguish Oujiang population and Liaohe population in the this study.