Data from: Dispersal in the sub-Antarctic: king penguins show remarkably little population genetic differentiation across their range

• Other Authors: Pathology & Laboratory Medicine (isManagedBy)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: The University of Western Australia
• Subjects: gene flow; genetic homogeneity; BayeScan; seabirds; King penguin; molecular ecology; Southern Ocean; SNPs; Aptenodytes patagonicus; Colonization; Antarctic; The Citadel; Antarc*; Crozet Islands; King Penguins
• Online Access: https://researchdata.edu.au/data-from-dispersal-differentiation-range/1702863; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7c0q8

External Organisations University of Oxford; Nelson Mandela University; Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive; The Citadel - The Military College of South Carolina; University of Granada Associated Persons Gary D. Miller (Creator); Karen J. Miller (Contributor)Gemma V. Clucas (Creator); Jane L. Younger (Creator); Damian Kao (Creator); Alex D. Rogers (Creator); Jonathan Handley (Creator); Pierre Jouventin (Creator); Paul Nolan (Creator); Karim Gharbi (Creator); Tom Hart (Creator) Background: Seabirds are important components of marine ecosystems, both as predators and as indicators of ecological change, being conspicuous and sensitive to changes in prey abundance. To determine whether fluctuations in population sizes are localised or indicative of large-scale ecosystem change, we must first understand population structure and dispersal. King penguins are long-lived seabirds that occupy a niche across the sub-Antarctic zone close to the Polar Front. Colonies have very different histories of exploitation, population recovery, and expansion. Results: We investigated the genetic population structure and patterns of colonisation of king penguins across their current range using a dataset of 5154 unlinked, high-coverage single nucleotide polymorphisms generated via restriction site associated DNA sequencing (RADSeq). Despite breeding at a small number of discrete, geographically separate sites, we find only very slight genetic differentiation among colonies separated by thousands of kilometers of open-ocean, suggesting migration among islands and archipelagos may be common. Our results show that the South Georgia population is slightly differentiated from all other colonies and suggest that the recently founded Falkland Island colony is likely to have been established by migrants from the distant Crozet Islands rather than nearby colonies on South Georgia, possibly as a result of density-dependent processes. Conclusions: The observed subtle differentiation among king penguin colonies must be considered in ...