Population status and potential storm dispersal events of Malaclemys terrapin in Florida Bay, Florida

Mitochondrial DNA and nuclear microsatellite analyses were performed on Malaclemys terrapin data. These analyses investigated the genetic variation among subspecies of M. terrapin throughout their range and sought to determine if hurricane mitigated dispersal occurs among populations of a single subspecies, M.t. rhizophorarum. The 700bp mtDNA fragment, ND4-Leu, provided only 1bp transition, and the 421bp D-loop, DES1-DES2, revealed no genetic variation between the seven subspecies. Four polymorphic loci were examined for the microsatellite analyses. These analyses revealed an average pairwise RST of 0.018. This indicates very close genetic identities between the two temporally sampled populations before and after Hurricane Georges. The average FST and GST values were 0.101 and 0.216 respectively. It can be noted that the RST values were able to correct for microsatellite mutation mechanisms. The results indicate that significant storm dispersal did not occur.