<i>ARTEMIA</i>HEMOGLOBINS: GENETIC VARIATION IN PARTHENOGENETIC AND ZYGOGENETIC POPULATIONS

Abstract

1. Twelve populations of Artemia were found to be crossfertile with San Francisco shrimps, which indicates that they are Artemia franciscana. 2. Three hemoglobins (Hb-1, Hb-2, and Hb-3) were induced in shrimps from 30 populations. Although many populations had unique patterns (considering relative mobilities of all three hemoglobins) there was so much interpopulation variation among 14 populations of A. franciscana that no one protein was diagnostic of any one of the five sibling species of zygogenetic shrimps. 3. Intrapopulation polymorphism of Hb-1 and/or Hb-2 was seen in most zygogenetic populations but was not detected in parthenogenetic populations. This suggests that parthenogenetic populations such as Kutch or Sète (57 shrimps examined from each) are each descended from a single clone which has recently invaded the habitat. Five of the seven parthenogenetic populations have Hb-1 and Hb-3 electromorphs with the same relative mobilities, suggesting that they may have a monophyletic origin. 4. Two exceptional males (progeny of parthenogenetic females reared in the laboratory) were mated to females from zygogenetic populations. The progeny were equal numbers of males and non-parthenogenetic females. Transfer of genes from one exceptional male to an A. urmiana female was documented with three genetic markers. 5. The relationship of the hemoglobins and the "slow proteins" of the hemolymph is discussed.