Morris, Kimberley Yana

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