HETEROZYGOSITY AND MORPHOLOGICAL VARIABILITY IN THE ORANGE ROUGHY, HOPLOSTETHUS-ATLANTICUS (TELEOSTEI, TRACHICHTHYIDAE)

Eleven polymorphic loci were screened in six southern Australian popul ations of the deepwater teleost Hoplostethus atlanticus, the orange ro ughy. Associations between heterozygosity and morphological variabilit y were examined. No significant correlations between heterozygosity at individual loci and length were observed. Homozygotes at ADA had sig nificantly greater length variance than heterozygotes in one populatio n whereas in another population, homozygotes for PGM-2 had significan tly reduced length variance compared with heterozygotes. No other sing le locus/length variance comparisons were significant. One of the six populations showed a significant positive regression of individual len gth on multilocus heterozygosity; regressions in the other five popula tions were nonsignificant and variable in slope direction. No signific ant correlations were detected between multilocus heterozygosity categ ory and mean length or coefficient of variance of length. Three of the populations were also examined for variation in four meristic charact ers and one measure of bilateral asymmetry: no consistent associations were detected between individual or multilocus heterozygosity and mea n or variance of these characters. The data provide little evidence fo r significant relationships between individual or multilocus heterozyg osity and morphological variability in orange roughy.