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

Abstract

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 FST) 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 FST increases with study distance for studies employing mtDNA sequences, but allozyme and microsatellite studies show no increase in FST 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 FST 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.

Marine connectivity: a new look at pelagic larval duration and genetic metrics of dispersal

“…Like Bradbury et al (2008), Riginos et al (2011) Bradbury et al (2008). PLD emerged as a significant predictor only when Riginos et al (2011) categorized fishes by family; Labridae was the only 1 of 4 families tested to show a significant F ST versus PLD correlation across species, with moderate explanatory power (R 2 = 0.37; Table 1).…”

“…PLD emerged as a significant predictor only when Riginos et al (2011) categorized fishes by family; Labridae was the only 1 of 4 families tested to show a significant F ST versus PLD correlation across species, with moderate explanatory power (R 2 = 0.37; Table 1). Because of the low sample size, the p-value of 0.04 reported for this relationship becomes non-significant using a familywide p-value correction (the other 3 families tested are considered as replicates); therefore, the Labridae trend cannot be considered robust (Benjamini & Hochberg 1995).…”

The application of genetics to marine management and conservation: examples from the Indo-Pacific

“…A number of caveats remain when calculating dispersal distances from genetic data (Palumbi 2003, Hellberg 2009). These include inferring a lack of dispersal as the cause of differentiation (Hart andMarko 2010, Marko andHart 2011), the influence of pelagic larval duration (PLD) on dispersal ability (Weersing and Toonen 2009, Selkoe and Toonen 2011, Riginos et al 2011, Faurby and Barber 2012 and realized dispersal on population genetic structure and gene flow.…”

Environmental variables, habitat discontinuity and life history shaping the genetic structure of Pomatoschistus marmoratus

“…The habitat discontinuities could cause the spatial isolation of the populations mainly on benthic marine species (Riginos and Nachman 2001;Johansson et al 2008;Riginos et al 2011). Inside Mar Menor lagoon, there are important habitat discontinuities related to spatial distribution of substrate type and submerged marine vegetation (González-Wangüemert et al 2009;Quintino et al 2010) which can be influencing the distribution and density of P. marmoratus populations.…”

“…Patterns of gene flow in benthic shore fishes appear to stem in part from aspects of life history, larval dispersal, adult migration, habitat discontinuity and coastal water currents (Marques et al 2006;Giovannotti et al 2009;Earl et al 2010;Riginos et al 2011;Hirase et al 2012;Durand et al 2013). Moreover, differences in reproductive strategy may have an important impact on genetic diversity and population structure (González-Wangüemert and Pérez-Ruzafa 2012; Portnoy et al 2013).…”