Hammerman, Nicholas M.

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    Discrete population structure and genetic connectivity of the plating coral, Agaricia Lamarcki from Puerto Rico and St. Croix
    (2016) Hammerman, Nicholas M.; Schizas, Nikolaos V.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Weil, Ernesto; Alfaro, Monica; Otero, Ernesto; Department of Marine Sciences; Navarro, Ana
    Identifying genetic population connectivity and discrete population boundaries are important objectives for management of declining Caribbean reef-building corals and coral reefs. A double digest restriction associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing protocol was utilized to generate 2,514 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to estimate patterns of horizontal and vertical gene flow in the brooding Caribbean plate coral, Agaricia lamarcki (Milne Edwards 1951), a dominant species in mesophotic coral communities. Individual colonies (n=200) were sampled from twelve locations throughout Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from shallow (~10-20m) and mesophotic habitats (~30-70m). STRUCTURE analyses, principal coordinate analyses and F- statistics revealed population structure between eight sampling localities in southwest Puerto Rico as compared with three populations from western Puerto Rico, southern Puerto Rico and St. Croix, respectively. Connectivity was estimated among the eight vertical and horizontally separated reefs within southwestern Puerto Rico. Our data suggest that A. lamarcki is capable of genetic dispersal on small spatial scales both horizontally and vertically, in patterns concordant with those predicted from a stepping stone model. As geographic distance increases among populations, so does genetic differentiation, consistent with the model of isolation by distance. Vertical dispersion implies that mesophotic populations could supply larvae to recolonize depleted shallow water populations of this species, as could other species with wide depth distributions.