The one exception, the Gold River on the south shore of Nova Scotia, clusters most closely with the River Phillip and the Isaac's Harbour River in the northern part of the province. The Gold River is close to a salmon farm which uses broodstock derived in part from the River Phillip. The results of our population survey demonstrate that minisatellites have considerable potential as genetic markers in studies of population structure in salmonids. They do, however, have some drawbacks as well. The need to group alleles in bins sacrifices some information about genetic variation.
Private alleles are of particular interest as population markers and for estimating gene flow.
We have cloned more than 20 short minisatellites from Atlantic salmon, and are currently sequencing these clones. Citations Bentzen, P., A. S. Harris, and J. M. Wright. 1991. Cloning of hypervariable minisatellite and simple sequence microsatellite repeats for DNA fingerprinting of important aquacultural species of salmonids and tilapias. Bentzen, P., E. B. Taylor, and J. M. Wright. 1993. A novel synthetic DNA probe for DNA fingerprinting salmonid fishes.