2.5 Statistical analysis for MHC and microsatellites markers between populations
For subsequent analyses, individuals were sorted according to their population origin (western and eastern) that corresponded to structure results (admixed individuals (q < 0.9) were excluded = 0 individuals). Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests were used to investigate neutral genetic variation with F and MLH calculated from microsatellite markers analysis, between the two E-mink populations and host sex. Adaptive genetic diversity and variation between E-mink populations and individual sex was also observed using the same approach for motif richness for both MHC genes and divergence.
Permutational multivariate analyses of variance (PERMANOA) modelsadonis from the vegan package were constructed with 9,999 permutations with reported F, R2, and p- values, to determine whether there were significant differences in genetic distance matrices for neutral and adaptive markers between E-mink population, individual sex and birth location. Pearson’s pairwise correlation tests between the presence of MHC motifs, present in at least three individuals, were conducted to potentially represent haplotype blocks for the two genes investigated. The significance cutoff was set to p‐value < .05 for each test. Mantel tests were also conducted between each neutral, MHC-I and MHC-II genetic distance matrices with 1,000 permutations to investigate correlation between each marker.