| Nude carps, a genotype of common carp which are devoid of scales, have been banned from farmed populations of carp in Europe due to both the lethal effect of the N (nude) gene when in homozygous state, and to the negative pleiotropic effects on growth and survival (especially in harsh conditions) of this same gene in the heterozygous state, which produces the nude phenotype. In Madagascar, where climatic variations are less extreme than in Eastern Europe, the nude phenotype is valued both by farmers and consumers, for its good growth and supposed low number of intermuscular bones. We performed an on-farm experiment using a “common garden” design to control environmental variation, in order to compare the growth and survival, as well as the number of... |
