The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline
Genetic diversity is the raw foundation for evolutionary potential. When genetic diversity is significantly reduced, the risk of extinction is heightened considerably. The long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) is one of two seahorse species occurring in the North-East Atlantic. The populati...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8129090 2023-05-15T17:38:32+02:00 The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline Stacy, Rupert Palma, Jorge Correia, Miguel Wilson, Anthony B. Andrade, José Pedro Castilho, Rita 2021-05-17 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8129090/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34001923 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8129090/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34001923 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 2021-05-23T00:49:12Z Genetic diversity is the raw foundation for evolutionary potential. When genetic diversity is significantly reduced, the risk of extinction is heightened considerably. The long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) is one of two seahorse species occurring in the North-East Atlantic. The population living in the Ria Formosa (South Portugal) declined dramatically between 2001 and 2008, prompting fears of greatly reduced genetic diversity and reduced effective population size, hallmarks of a genetic bottleneck. This study tests these hypotheses using samples from eight microsatellite loci taken from 2001 and 2013, on either side of the 2008 decline. The data suggest that the population has not lost its genetic diversity, and a genetic bottleneck was not detectable. However, overall relatedness increased between 2001 to 2013, leading to questions of future inbreeding. The effective population size has seemingly increased close to the threshold necessary for the population to retain its evolutionary potential, but whether these results have been affected by sample size is not clear. Several explanations are discussed for these unexpected results, such as gene flow, local decline due to dispersal to other areas of the Ria Formosa, and the potential that the duration of the demographic decline too short to record changes in the genetic diversity. Given the results presented here and recent evidence of a second population decline, the precise estimation of both gene flow and effective population size via more extensive genetic screening will be critical to effective population management. Text North East Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Seahorse ENVELOPE(163.300,163.300,-78.017,-78.017) Scientific Reports 11 1 |
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Article Stacy, Rupert Palma, Jorge Correia, Miguel Wilson, Anthony B. Andrade, José Pedro Castilho, Rita The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
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Genetic diversity is the raw foundation for evolutionary potential. When genetic diversity is significantly reduced, the risk of extinction is heightened considerably. The long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) is one of two seahorse species occurring in the North-East Atlantic. The population living in the Ria Formosa (South Portugal) declined dramatically between 2001 and 2008, prompting fears of greatly reduced genetic diversity and reduced effective population size, hallmarks of a genetic bottleneck. This study tests these hypotheses using samples from eight microsatellite loci taken from 2001 and 2013, on either side of the 2008 decline. The data suggest that the population has not lost its genetic diversity, and a genetic bottleneck was not detectable. However, overall relatedness increased between 2001 to 2013, leading to questions of future inbreeding. The effective population size has seemingly increased close to the threshold necessary for the population to retain its evolutionary potential, but whether these results have been affected by sample size is not clear. Several explanations are discussed for these unexpected results, such as gene flow, local decline due to dispersal to other areas of the Ria Formosa, and the potential that the duration of the demographic decline too short to record changes in the genetic diversity. Given the results presented here and recent evidence of a second population decline, the precise estimation of both gene flow and effective population size via more extensive genetic screening will be critical to effective population management. |
format |
Text |
author |
Stacy, Rupert Palma, Jorge Correia, Miguel Wilson, Anthony B. Andrade, José Pedro Castilho, Rita |
author_facet |
Stacy, Rupert Palma, Jorge Correia, Miguel Wilson, Anthony B. Andrade, José Pedro Castilho, Rita |
author_sort |
Stacy, Rupert |
title |
The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
title_short |
The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
title_full |
The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
title_fullStr |
The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
title_full_unstemmed |
The paradox of retained genetic diversity of Hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
title_sort |
paradox of retained genetic diversity of hippocampus guttulatus in the face of demographic decline |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8129090/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34001923 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(163.300,163.300,-78.017,-78.017) |
geographic |
Seahorse |
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Seahorse |
genre |
North East Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North East Atlantic |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8129090/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34001923 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89708-0 |
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