Genetic isolation among mountains but not between stream types in a tropical high‐altitude mayfly

Abstract

Summary Glaciers that directly feed high‐altitude streams create unique environmental conditions that contribute substantially to regional‐scale lotic habitat diversity and biodiversity, including intra‐specific genetic diversity (as population structure) between glacier‐fed and other types of streams (e.g. groundwater‐fed). However, these population‐genetic patterns are thus far only understood for macroinvertebrates in the temperate zone, where strong seasonality and narrow temporal windows for emergence and mating could help drive patterns of genetic differentiation between streams with contrasting temperature, flow, or other environmental characteristics influencing life‐history patterns. Our primary objective was to assess population‐genetic structure between groundwater‐(GW) and glacier runoff‐fed (RO) streams in high‐altitude tropical (relatively aseasonal) basins of the Ecuadorian Andes. Our focal species was Andesiops peruvianus, a baetid mayfly confamilial with well‐studied temperate alpine mayflies. We pursued secondary objectives of evaluating broader scale population‐genetic patterns across mountain ranges for the first time in high‐altitude tropical streams, and evaluating genetic evidence for recovery from population bottlenecks in this volcanically active region. For the primary objective, we collected A. peruvianus (mean N = 16.5 per reach) and a suite of environmental variables from six intra‐basin pairs of GW/RO stream reaches at altitudes 4000–4300 m a.s.l. on three glaciated volcanoes representing two parallel sub‐ranges of the Ecuadorian Andes. We tested for significant GW/RO pairwise differences in haplotype distribution and genetic diversity obtained by sequencing the barcoding region of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene. For the broader scale sub‐objectives, we added two unpaired populations (total N = 231) and evaluated genetic structure at nested spatial scales of streams/basins/mountains, and we tested for differences between mountains. We also measured Tajima's D and Fu's FS to evaluate evidence for demographic instability at the scale of individual mountains, each with a different volcanic history. We found no evidence for population structure between GW and RO streams within basins. Population structure among basins within mountains was significant, but only in areas where streams occupied deep, physically isolating canyons. Comparisons between all possible pairs of the three mountains revealed significant structure, but pairwise ΦST was an order of magnitude greater between pairs of mountains occupying different ranges than for the pair in the same range. Indeed, no haplotypes were shared between the two Andean sub‐ranges. All three mountains, regardless of recent volcanic history, showed a significant signature of recovery from recent bottleneck. Our results suggest that strong environmental differences between glacial runoff and groundwater stream types do not isolate these tropical, high‐altitude mayfly populations. Rather, populations are panmictic within basins. Br...

Congruent population genetic structure but differing depths of divergence for three alpine stoneflies with similar ecology and geographic distributions

“…Observed patterns of differentiation in both Z. glacier and Lednia corresponded with a signature of mountaintop isolation (Finn & Adler, 2006;Finn et al, , 2016Jordan et al, 2016). Observed patterns of differentiation in both Z. glacier and Lednia corresponded with a signature of mountaintop isolation (Finn & Adler, 2006;Finn et al, , 2016Jordan et al, 2016).…”

“…All three stoneflies are phytophagous with short (probably <30 days) winged adult stages, and they inhabit (and sometimes co-occur within) streams fed by meltwater from permanent ice sources (e.g. Finn, Encalada, & Hampel, 2016;Finn, Theobald, Black, & Poff, 2006) and terrestrial species (Floyd, Van Vuren, & May, 2005;Hime et al, 2016). This type of mountaintop island distribution can be a driver of genetic divergence within aquatic (e.g.…”

Climate variability predicts thermal limits of aquatic insects across elevation and latitude

“…In the tropics, the average annual minimum and maximum temperatures declines with increasing elevation, but the difference between them remains constant (Table ). The exception to this pattern occurs at the highest elevation above tree‐line, where the grass‐dominated tropical páramo receives high insolation, and stream temperatures show greater thermal variation than lower elevation forest‐canopied streams (Table ; Finn, Encalada, & Hampel, ; see also Huey et al., ). In temperate streams, thermal breadth decreases with increasing elevation as the difference between annual minimum and maximum temperatures also decreases with elevation (Figure a).…”

Demographic modelling reveals a history of divergence with gene flow for a glacially tied stonefly in a changing post‐Pleistocene landscape

“…With the addition of genomic data, demographic model testing unequivocally favoured a history of gene flow over models that either excluded migration fully, or included fewer migration parameters. Both morphological (Garcia‐Raventós, Viza, Tierno de Figueroa, Riera, & Múrria, ) and mtDNA (Finn & Adler, ; Finn, Encalada, & Hampel, ; Giersch et al., ; Jordan et al., ) evidence suggests that stoneflies (and related alpine stream species) are poor dispersers. Consequently, the support for gene flow occurring on large spatial scales is surprising and may provide some degree of optimism from a climate change perspective.…”