PRELIMINARY STUDIES ON THE POPULATION-GENETICS OF THE CENTRAL STONEROLLER (CAMPOSTOMA-ANOMALUM) FROM THE GREAT MIAMI RIVER BASIN, OHIO

Molecular approaches are particularly useful for measuring genetic div ersity and were applied to samples of central stonerollers obtained fr om sites alone tributaries to the Great Miami River in Ohio. We used R andom Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis to assess the level of genetic diversity within and among these populations. RAPD analysis g enerates genetic profiles that were used to develop indices of genetic similarity. The RAPD method provides a cost effective means of genera ting an arbitrary sample of anonymous loci across the genome and gener ate a virtually unlimited set of loci for use in genetic analysis ih t he absence of specific sequence information. These attributes make RAP Ds well suited for use in evaluating the diversity and assessing the p otential vulnerability to exposure of populations across multiple spat ial scales. The results demonstrate that a significant amount of struc turing exists among populations analyzed to date and that a trend exis ts towards genetic diversity being an inverse function of site distanc e from the main stem as well as a being directly related to stream ord er. This indicates that populations farthest from main conduits or in lower order streams, and thereby most isolated, may be the most vulner able populations to stressor exposure-It is hoped that information per taining to genetic diversity, when integrated with other metrics of re source condition, will aid in making scientifically grounded decisions on resource management that enhance the probability of population sur vival and preserve natural evolutionary processes.