The evolutionary history of the goby Elacatinus puncticulatus in the tropical eastern pacific: effects of habitat discontinuities and local environmental variability

Publication date: Available online 23 October 2018Source: Molecular Phylogenetics and EvolutionAuthor(s): Edgar Raúl Sandoval-Huerta, Rosa Gabriela Beltrán-López, Carmen del Rocío Pedraza-Marrón, María Alejandra Paz-Velásquez, Arturo Angulo, Ross Robertson, Eduardo Espinoza, Omar Domínguez-DomínguezAbstractHabitat discontinuities, temperature gradients, upwelling systems, and ocean currents, gyres and fronts, can affect distributions of species with narrow environmental tolerance or motility and influence the dispersal of pelagic larvae, with effects ranging from the isolation of adjacent populations to connections between them. The coast of the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) is a highly dynamic environment, with various large gyres and upwelling systems, alternating currents and large rocky-habitat discontinuities, which may greatly influence the genetic connectivity of populations in different parts of the coast. Elacatinus puncticulatus is a cryptic, shallow-living goby that is distributed along the continental shore of virtually the entire TEP, which makes it a good model for testing the influence of these environmental characteristics in the molecular evolution of widespread species in this region. A multilocus phylogeny was use to evaluate the influence of habitat gaps, and oceanographic processes in the evolutionary history of E. puncticulatus throughout its geographical range in the TEP. Two well-supported allopatric clades (one with two allopatric subclades)...
Source: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution - Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research