Unexpected high genetic diversity at the extreme northern geographic limit of Taurulus bubalis (Euphrasen, 1786)

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Almada, Vítor Carvalho, Almada, Frederico José Oliveira de, Francisco, Sara Martins, Castilho, Rita, Robalo, Joana Isabel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science 2012
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/1789; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0044404

The longspined bullhead (Taurulus bubalis, Euphrasen 1786) belongs to the family Cottidae and is a rocky shore species that inhabits the intertidal zones of the Eastern Atlantic since Iceland, southward to Portugal and also the North Sea and Baltic, northward to the Gulf of Finland, with some occurrences in the northern Mediterranean coasts eastward to the Gulf of Genoa. We analysed the phylogeographic patterns of this species using mitochondrial and nuclear markers in populations throughout most of its distributional range in west Europe. We found that T. bubalis has a relatively shallow genealogy with some differentiation between Atlantic and North Sea. Genetic diversity was homogeneous across all populations studied. The possibility of a glacial refugium near the North Sea is discussed. In many, but not all, marine temperate organisms, patterns of diversity are similar across the species range. If this phenomenon proves to be most common in cold adapted species, it may reflect the availability of glacial refugia not far from their present-day northern limits. This study was funded by the European Science Foundation’s MarinERA project ‘‘Marine phylogeographic structuring during climate change: the signature of leading and rear edge of range shifting populations’’ and by the Eco-Ethology Research Unit (331/94) pluriannual financing programme (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (partially FEDER funded). FA (SFRH/BPD/63170/2009) research was supported by an FCT grant (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.