Abstract
It is an ancient species with a large and highly duplicated genome. To increase the resolution of previous studies, which found very low diversity, we investigated microsatellite, AFLP and Random Amplified Fragments (RAFs) markers. Our study confirmed the very low variation. however, polymorphic RAF fragments have confirmed that Lungfish populations are not homogenous within or between river systems. RAF AMOVA indicated significant partitioning of the Brisbane from Burnett and Mary catchments of 19%. This is in congruence with weak structuring previously detected using allozymes. Our results indicate that the Brisbane river population has not, as previously thought, arisen due to translocations. The use RAF markers has also resolved the low but significant structure identified by allozymes between impounded and non impounded populations, with a distinction of 21% indicating previous translocations supplementing impoundment mortalities were from the same source. We report the utility of RAFs in evaluating genetic diversity of the lungfish. In contrast to the challenges to both development and characterisation of microsatellites in lungfish, application of RAF markers was fairly direct and gave repeatability of patterns.