Along-shelf connectivity and circumpolar gene flow in Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica) ...

• Main Authors: Caccavo, Jilda Alicia, Papetti, Chiara, Wetjen, Maj, Knust, Rainer, Ashford, Julian R., Zane, Lorenzo
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2020
• Subjects: molecular ecology; EST-linked microsatellites; Antarctic fish; Pleuragramma antarctica; population genetic structure; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Atka; Charcot; Charcot Island; Filchner Trough; Joinville; Joinville Island; Larsen Bay; Marguerite; Marguerite Bay; Ross Sea; South Orkney Islands; South Shetland Islands; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctic silverfish; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m0cfxpp0z; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.m0cfxpp0z

The Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica) is a critically important forage species with a circumpolar distribution and is unique among other notothenioid species for its wholly pelagic life cycle. Previous studies have provided mixed evidence of population structure over regional and circumpolar scales. The aim of the present study was to test the recent population hypothesis for Antarctic silverfish, which emphasizes the interplay between life history and hydrography in shaping connectivity. A total of 1067 individuals were collected over 25 years from different locations on a circumpolar scale. Samples were genotyped at fifteen microsatellites to assess population differentiation and genetic structuring using clustering methods, F-statistics, and hierarchical analysis of variance. A lack of differentiation was found between locations connected by the Antarctic Slope Front Current (ASF), indicative of high levels of gene flow. However, gene flow was significantly reduced at the South Orkney Islands ... : A total of 1067 Pleuragramma antarctica individuals from 19 sampling locations collected by multiple institutions between 1989 and 2014 were included in the analysis. Of these, 249 individuals collected between 1989 and 1997 from the Ross Sea (RS96, RS97), Halley Bay (HB89, HB91), and South Shetland Islands (SSI96) were included from a previous study on population structure using mitochondrial DNA (Zane et al. 2006). A further 562 individuals collected between 2001 and 2012 from Larsen Bay (LB07), Charcot Island (CI10), Marguerite Bay (MB01, MB02, MB10, MB11), and Joinville Island (JI07, JI10, JI12) were included from a previous connectivity study focused on the Antarctic Peninsula (Agostini et al. 2015). The remaining 256 individuals collected in 2011 and 2014 from the South Orkney Islands (SOI11), Larsen Bay (LB11), Filchner Trough (FT14), Atka Bay (AB14), and Halley Bay (HB14) have not previously been examined. All samples, including those obtained in 2011 and 2014 that had not been previously examined, ...