Morphological and Genetic Characters of Artificially Propagated Sea Bass in Taiwan

Artificial sea bass seeds from Taiwan, which are similar to Chinese sea bass Lateolabrax sp., were morphologically and genetically compared with L. japonicus and L. sp. studied in the previous report. Morphologically, pronounced differences were detected in many characters between L. japonicus and L. sp. Features in the characters of the Taiwanese form correspond well with those of L. sp. Genetical ly, a significant difference was recognized in the chi-square test for goodness of fit to the Hardy-Wein berg equilibrium at the *MEP and *PGM loci in the Taiwanese form. Furthermore, excesses of homozygotes were observed, which were presumed to be caused by genetic drift. Genetic characters indi cated extreme differences in allelic frequencies at three loci between L. japonicus and L. sp. The allelic compositions at the loci in the Taiwanese form were close to those of L. sp., but differed in some other loci. This was regarded to be caused by genetic drift. The results showed that the Taiwanese form is the same species of Lateolabrax sp.