Zootechnical and behavioural traits can vary substantially among wild allopatric European perch populations. Choosing wild European perch population(s) showing higher growth rate, lower cannibalism and size heterogeneity with specific behavioural traits such as low aggressive interaction rate and homogeneous spatial distribution in rearing units are crucial for the establishment of the European perch broodstock and subsequent selective breeding programs. Therefore, knowledge of the zootechnical and behavioural traits relative to geographic origin supported by genetic analyses may ultimately help to overcome current challenges and bottlenecks of European perch aquaculture. Population differences in zootechnical and behavioural traits can be shaped by genetic differentiation, phenotypic plasticity, or by their combination. However, it is not clear whether the inter-population differences are genetically- or environmentally-induced. Therefore, we explored the zootechnical traits of geographically different European perch populations at larval- (two Finish, two Polish, two Slovakian, one Czech; Chapter II) and juvenile-stages (Polish, Czech, Slovakian; Chapter III) in the same standardized conditions reducing the environmental effect. Additionally, we provided a genetic-based assessment on four mitochondrial markers: cytochrome b, D-loop of control region, 16S rRNA, and cytochrome oxidase I (Chapters II, III). In Chapter IV, we observed behavioural traits of larvae and juveniles from two Finish and one French populations. According to obtained results, zootechnical and behavioural traits differed among allopatric populations of European perch. Moreover, the differences in zootechnical traits were mainly observed between most genetically differentiated populations (both Finish in Chapter II, and Polish in Chapter III). This could suggest a genetic basis of the observed growth differentiation and, consequently, a potential heritability of this pattern. Additionally, higher growth rate of northern populations could be partly attributed to behavioural traits as we found more cohesive and homogenous group structure in both Finish compared to French populations which, on the other hand, showed higher aggressive interactions. However, European perch larvae and juveniles from genetically lower- or un-differentiated populations (i.e. Polish, Slovakian and Czech in Chapter II and Slovakian and Czech in Chapter III) showed variations in zootechnical traits as well. The variation could be a consequence of different food intake, health status, pre-collection environment, transgenerational effect and usage of conservative mitochondrial markers, i.e. the lack of genetic differentiation among some populations should be further assessed by higher resolution analyses (e.g. microsatellites). Further studies are needed to assess the importance of these factors in geographic differentiation of aquaculture performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:403680 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | GEBAUER, Tatyana |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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