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Effects of geography and life history traits on genetic differentiation in benthic marine fishes

Version 2 2024-06-04, 14:18
Version 1 2018-04-13, 11:09
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-04, 14:18 authored by C Riginos, KE Douglas, Y Jin, DF Shanahan, Eric TremlEric Treml
Dispersal of planktonic larvae can create connections between geographically separated adult populations of benthic marine animals. How geographic context and life history traits affect these connections is largely unresolved. We use data from genetic studies (species level F ST ) of benthic teleost fishes combined with linear models to evaluate the importance of transitions between biogeographic regions, geographic distance, egg type (benthic or pelagic eggs), pelagic larval duration (PLD), and type of genetic marker as factors affecting differentiation within species. We find that transitions between biogeographic regions and egg type are significant and consistent contributors to population genetic structure, whereas PLD does not significantly explain population structure. Total study distance frequently contributes to significant interaction terms, particularly in association with genetic markers, whereby F ST increases with study distance for studies employing mtDNA sequences, but allozyme and microsatellite studies show no increase in F ST with study distance. These results highlight the importance of spatial context (biogeography and geographic distance) in affecting genetic differentiation and imply that there are inherent differences in dispersal ability associated with egg type. We also find that the geographic distance over which the maximum pairwise F ST between populations occurs (relative to total study distance) is highly variable and can be observed at any scale. This result is consistent with stochastic processes inflating genetic differentiation and/or insufficient consideration of geographic and biological factors relevant to connectivity.

History

Journal

Ecography: pattern and diversity in ecology

Volume

34

Pagination

566-575

Location

Chichester, Eng.

ISSN

0906-7590

eISSN

1600-0587

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article, C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2011, The Authors

Issue

4

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons