Cryptic Vicariance in Gulf of California Fishes Parallels Vicariant Patterns Found in Baja California Mammals and Reptiles

Abstract

Abstract. Comparisons across multiple taxa can often clarify the histories of biogeographic regions. In particular, historic barriers to movement should have affected multiple species and, thus, result in a pattern of concordant intraspecific genetic divisions among species. A striking example of such comparative phylogeography is the recent observation that populations of many small mammals and reptiles living on the Baja California peninsula have a large genetic break between northern and southern peninsular populations. In the present study, I demonstrate that five species of near-shore fishes living on the Baja coastline of the Gulf of California share this genetic pattern. The simplest explanation for this concordant genetic division within both terrestrial and marine vertebrates is that the Baja Peninsula was fragmented by a Plio-Pleistocene marine seaway and that this seaway posed a substantial barrier to movement for near-shore fishes. For some fish species, the signal of this vicariance in mtDNA has been eroded by gene flow and is not evident with classic, equilibrium measures of population structure. Yet, significant divisions are apparent in coalescent analyses that jointly estimate divergence with gene flow. The genetic divisions within Gulf of California fishes also coincide with recognized biogeographic regions based on fish community composition and several environmental factors. It is likely that adaptation to regional environments and present-day oceanographic circulation limit gene exchange between biogeographic regions and help maintain evidence of past vicariance.

Phylogeography’s past, present, and future: 10 years after Avise, 2000

“…Some well-developed regional study systems include regions such as the Australian wet tropics (Schneider et al, 1998), southeastern North America (Avise et al, 1987;Soltis et al, 2006), Baja California (Leaché et al, 2007;Riddle et al, 2000;Riginos, 2005), the North Atlantic (Maggs et al, 2008;Olsen et al, 2004), the Indo-Pacific coral triangle (Barber et al, 2000), the Pacific Northwest of North America (Brunsfeld et al, 2001;Carstens et al, 2005a), California (Lapointe and Rissler, 2005), the Pacific Coast of North America (Cook et al, 2001;Jacobs et al, 2004), the neotropical rainforests (Burney and Brumfield, 2009), East Africa (Fjeldsa and Bowie, 2008) and Europe (Hewitt, 2000;Weiss and Nuno, 2006). Notably, southern hemispheric regions have received much less attention (Beheregaray, 2008;Heckman et al, 2007;Victoriano et al, 2008;Yoder et al, 2005).…”

The role of molecular genetics in sculpting the future of integrative biogeography

“…Upton and Murphy (1997) initially hypothesized a temporary mid-peninsular seaway at about 1 Ma as the causal vicariant event for a lizard lineage, and subsequent studies of rodent lineages appeared to support this recent date (Riddle et al, 2000a;2000b;2000c). Riginos (2005) presented evidence from near-shore reef fishes that strongly supported the past existence of a seaway, but argued that the extensive molecular sequence divergence observed among a variety of terrestrial and marine lineages in the area support a much earlier date (eg, reptiles, Rodriguez-Robles and De Jesus-Escobar, 2000;Lindell et al, 2005;spiders, Crews and Hedin, 2006; near-shore reef fi shes, Riginos, 2005). Geological and palaeontological evidence indicate a late Miocene (7 Ma) or early Pliocene submergence of the central peninsula, associated with the opening of the initial proto-Gulf (Smith, 1984;Ortlieb, 1991;Helenes and Carreño, 1999;Holt et al, 2000;Carreño and Helenes, 2002;Ledesma-Vázquez, 2002).…”

Evolution of a Neotropical marine fish lineage (Subfamily Chaenopsinae, Suborder Blennioidei) based on phylogenetic analysis of combined molecular and morphological data

“…Several aspects of their life-history, including possessing demersal eggs (Hastings, 1988a), short pelagic larval duration (Almany and Baldwin, 1996), near-shore development (Brogan, 1994), and limited adult dispersal ability, increase the possibilities of genetic differentiation of local populations. Chaenopsins have been the focus of several studies that have documented significant genetic structure among allopatric populations in the Gulf of California region (Bernardi et al, 2003;Lin et al, 2009;Lin and Galland, 2010;Riginos, 2005) and Caribbean (Eytan and Hellberg, 2010). In addition, closure of the Isthmus of Panama has clearly played an important role in shaping the current amphi-American distribution of the group (Table 1).…”