MORPHOLOGICAL AND GENETIC CHARACTERS OF ARTIFICIALLY PROPAGATED SEA BASS IN TAIWAN

Artificial sea bass seeds from Taiwan, which are similar to Chinese se a bass Lateolabrax sp., were morphologically and genetically compared with L. japonicus and L. sp. studied in the previous report. Morpholog ically, pronounced differences were detected in many characters betwee n L. japonicus and L. sp. Features in the characters of the Taiwanese form correspond well with those of L. sp. Genetically, a significant d ifference was recognized in the chi-square test for goodness of fit to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium at the MEP and *PGM loci in the Taiwa nese form. Furthermore, excesses of homozygotes were observed, which w ere presumed to be caused by genetic drift. Genetic characters indicat ed extreme differences in allelic frequencies at three loci between L. japonicus and L. sp. The allelic compositions at the loci in the Taiw anese form were close to those of L. sp., but differed in some other l oci. This was regarded to be caused by genetic drift. The results show ed that the Taiwanese form is the same species of Lateolabrax sp.