Genetic variation, breeding structure and taxonomic status of the gummy shark Mustelus antarcticus in southern Australian waters

Abstract

Electrophoretic studies of the protein products of 32 presumed gene loci have indicated low levels of allelic variation in Mustelus antarcticus. Only one enzyme, L-lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), exhibited sufficient allelic polymorphism to be useful as a marker for population studies. The distribution of LDH alleles was homogeneous in M. antarcticus sample sets collected from across the range of the species. The LDH data, together with information from earlier tagging studies, suggest that there is sufficient movement and gene exchange for M. antarcticus throughout southern Australian waters to be considered part of a single breeding population. The high degree of genetic similarity observed between all samples also indicates that there is only one Mustelus species (M. antarcticus) in southern Australian waters.