Chromosomal evolution and molecular genetic analysis of four species of genus Anas (Aves: Anatidae)

Abstract

Birds are considered one of the least karyotypically examined animal groups due to their karyotype specificity, i.e. small chromosomes, a large diploid chromosome number and the separation of chromosomes into macro- and microchromosomes. The present work was aimed to investigate the number of chromosomes and their karyological and molecular genetic relationships of four species of genus Anas (Anas crecca, Anas penelope, Anas acuta and Anas clypeata (Family: Anatidae). All four species have the same diploid chromosome number of 2n=80. The four investigated species have shown five pairs of macrochromosomes and the remaining 35 pairs were of microchromosomes. Ten RAPD primers were used for molecular discrimination by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The (PCR) showed polymorphic bands, which were used for the construction of the dendrogram and a similarity matrix. A total of 133 bands were obtained; 37 of them were polymorphic and 27 unique bands. Similarity values among the species under study ranged from 79% to 85%. The highest similarity was between A. Penelope and A. acuta (85%) while the lowest similarity was between A. acuta and A. clypeata (79 %). RAPD analysis confirmed that the four Anas species under study are genetically different from each other and a genetic variation was found between and within the three species tested in this study. The karyotypic features are also suitable as cytotaxonomic markers of Anatidae.