Admixture analyses and phylogeographic relationships reveal complete genetic distinctiveness of Polish farm and wild red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and the North American origin of farm-bred individuals.

A number of studies showed that many mtDNA haplotypes were shared among contemporary farm red foxes bred on different continents and the historical wild red foxes of North American origin. Therefore, in this study, the population genetic structure and phylogeographic relationships of Polish red foxes kept on fur farms and their wild conspecifics were investigated to assess the ancestry of the farm red foxes in Poland. A total of 330 tissue samples (200 from farm foxes and 130 from wild foxes) were used for the genetic analyses. Thirty microsatellite loci and two regions of mtDNA were used to assess the level of admixture between farm- and wild red foxes, to construct haplotype networks and create a phylogenetic tree. The genetic structure analysis clearly indicated two genetic clusters as being the most probable number of genetically distinct populations. The fixation index revealed a significant genetic distance between the farm- and wild red fox populations (FST  = 0.27, p < 0.05). Haplotype networks based on frequencies showing relationships between concatenated haplotypes of Polish farm- and wild red foxes and the constructed phylogenetic tree clearly indicated two genetically distinct groups. The results of this study provide strong evidence confirming the North American origin of red foxes bred on Polish farms and the genetic distinctiveness of both studied populations.

Microsatellite polymorphism and its association with body weight and selected morphometrics of farm red fox (Vulpes vulpes L.).

Polymorphism of 30 canine-derived microsatellites was studied in a group of 200 red foxes kept on 2 Polish farms. 22 out of 30 microsatellites were selected to study association between marker genotypes and body weight (BW), body length (BL), body circumference (BC), tail length (TL), ear height (EH), length of the right front limb (FRLL), length of the right rear limb (RRLL), length of the right front foot (FRFL) and length of the right rear foot (RRFL). A total of 112 alleles and 243 genotypes were found at 22 autosomal microsatellite loci. Three monomorphic loci deemed as uninformative were excluded from the study. The association between marker genotypes and the studied traits was analysed using general linear model (GLM) procedure and least squares means (LSM). Linkage disequilibrium (LD) was estimated to assess non-random association between microsatellite loci. Out of 19 microsatellites studied four markers showed no association with the studied traits, three markers had a significant effect on one trait, and another three markers had significant effect on two traits. Among ten microsatellites with significant effect on four economically important traits (BW, BL, BC, TL) four were associated with two characters: marker FH2613 with BW and BC, marker FH2097withBL and BC, marker ZUBECA6 with BW and BC, whereas marker REN75M10 was associated with BL and TL. The strongest LD (r(2) ranged from 0.15 to 0.33) was estimated between nine loci with significant effect on economically important traits (BW, BL, BC, TL).