Genetical variation in three Pacific House mouse (Mus musculus) populations |
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| Authors: | R J Berry R D Sage W Z Lidicker and W B Jackson |
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| Institution: | *Department of Zoology, University College London, London, England.;**Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94702, U.S.A.;***Environmental Studies Center, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | Studies of allozymic variation at 36 loci in samples of House mouse ( Mus musculus ) populations collected from the island of Hawaii and two islets in the Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands are reported. All three populations carried a great deal of inherited variation: the Hawaiian sample had a mean heterozygosity of 16.6% per locus, which is the highest value so far found for a mouse population. The mean heterozygosities for the two atoll populations were 11.4% and 10.9%.
There were no changes in either heterozygosity or allozyme frequencies with age. In this respect, these populations from the tropical Pacific differed from populations living in cold temperate regions where natural selection has been shown to affect allele frequencies in different ways at different stages of the life cycle. |
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