Microsatellite DNA variation in Ural bank vole populations

Highly polymorphic microsatellite DNA loci areeffective markers of genetic and demographic pro-cesses in mammal populations. These processes arestudied in terms of the spatial organization of popula-tions and cyclic fluctuations in population sizes (Ehrichet al., 2001; Redeker et al., 2006). The microsatelliteDNA variation in mammals and other vertebratescaused by technogenic environment pollution has beenstudied considerably less. Mutagenic pollution mayeither increase the genetic diversity (due to de novomutations) or decrease it as a result of differential elimi-nation of the genotypes noncompetitive in an adverseenvironment. The complexity of this problem is evi-denced by contradictory data on microsatellite DNAvariation in different species of vertebrates. An increasedmutation rate in microsatellite loci was found in barnswallows exposed to irradiation after the Chernobylaccident (Ellegren, 1997). On the other hand, no sucheffect has been found in children of Chernobyl liquida-tors (Slebos et al., 2004; Furitsu et al., 2005). No rela-tionship between heavy metal pollution and microsatel-lite variation has been found in European eel from Bel-gium (Maes, 2005); however, such a relationship isvery probable in the case of wood mice (Berckmoeset al., 2005).In this study, we used microsatellite markers to com-pare genetic diversity in Ural populations of the bankvole (