The release of domestic organisms to the wild is considered a threat to
biodiversity because the introduction of domestic genes through interbreeding can
negatively impact wild conspecifics via outbreeding and local extinction. In North
America, captive American mink (Neovison vison) are frequently escaping into the wild,
yet the impact of these events on the functional genetic diversity of wild mink populations
is unclear. I characterized domestic and wild mink in Ontario at 17 trinucleotide
microsatellites located in functional genes thought to be associated with traits affected by
domestication. I found low functional genetic diversity, as only 4 of 17 genes were
variable and of those four there was little evidence of allele frequency differences
between domestic and wild mink. Using redundancy analysis and a spatial analysis of
principal components on the four variable loci (AR, ATN1, IGF-1, and TOB1) I found no
evidence to suggest domestic release events are affecting functional genetic diversity of
free-ranging mink at the set of markers assessed.
Author Keywords: American mink, domestication, functional gene, introgression, Neovison vison