Abstract: | This study deals with the characterization of 10populations of M. musculus from differentgeographical locations in India. The genetics of Indianwild mice has been completely obscure and this is thefirst report on allozyme variations in the naturalpopulation. We have used a set of 24 biochemical geneticmarkers to measure levels of diversity within and amongpopulations. The allelic frequency data indicate extreme genetic variability, which is furtherenhanced by the presence of novel alleles. Overall thespecies shows a high level of heterogenity. The highlypolymorphic central populations of M. musculus cannot be assigned to any one particularsubspecies. The allelic profiles, however, indicate agradual differentiation toward the castaneus andbatcrianus subspecies lineages. |