Observing populations at different spatial scales gives greater insight into the
specific processes driving genetic differentiation and population structure. Here we
determined population connectivity across multiple spatial scales in the Red Sea to
determine the population structures of two reef building corals Stylophora pistillata and
Pocillopora verrucosa. The Red sea is a 2,250 km long body of water with extremely
variable latitudinal environmental gradients. Mitochondrial and microsatellite markers
were used to determine distinct lineages and to look for genetic differentiation among
sampling sites. No distinctive population structure across the latitudinal gradient was
discovered within this study suggesting a phenotypic plasticity of both these species to
various environments. Stylophora pistillata displayed a heterogeneous distribution of
three distinct genetic populations on both a fine and large scale. Fst, Gst, and Dest were all
significant (p-value<0.05) and showed moderate genetic differentiation between all
sampling sites. However this seems to be byproduct of the heterogeneous distribution, as
no distinct genetic population breaks were found. Stylophora pistillata showed greater
population structure on a fine scale suggesting genetic selection based on fine scale
environmental variations. However, further environmental and oceanographic data is
needed to make more inferences on this structure at small spatial scales. This study
highlights the deficits of knowledge of both the Red Sea and coral plasticity in regards to
local environmental conditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:kaust.edu.sa/oai:repository.kaust.edu.sa:10754/583600 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Monroe, Alison |
| Contributors | Berumen, Michael L., Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division, Ravasi, Timothy, Voolstra, Christian R. |
| Source Sets | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | 2016-12-10, At the time of archiving, the student author of this thesis opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this thesis became available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2016-12-10. |
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