Cold-water corals increase habitat heterogeneity and enhance biodiversity in deep waters worldwide. Despite the recognition of their importance in the deep sea, limited data exist on the ecology and evolution of deep-water corals. The overarching goal of this dissertation research was to integrate molecular, morphological, and ecological data to understand the degree to which populations are connected, species are distributed, and communities are assembled in the deep (250-2500 m) Gulf of Mexico (GoM). Specifically, several hypotheses were tested regarding the roles of environmental variables, particularly depth, influencing population and community structure. Combining phylogenetic and population genetic approaches with ecological data enabled species delimitations of many taxa while demonstrating that deep-water populations and communities diverge over short bathymetric distances. It appears that population isolation, congeneric species replacement and changes in community composition occur rapidly with depth, and these changes are likely due to a combination of both dispersal limitation and adaptive divergence with depth. Local self-recruitment may also be strong within any one site. Furthermore, results suggest that evolutionary history and neutral dynamics play a critical role in octocoral community assembly in the deep sea. This dissertation not only contributes a substantial amount of evolutionary and ecological information on a poorly studied group of foundation species in the deep sea, this research has broader implications for aiding in efforts to protect these long-lived, foundation species from anthropogenic disturbances. / Biology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/3434 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Quattrini, Andrea |
| Contributors | Cordes, Erik E., Freestone, Amy, Kulathinal, Rob J., Sanders, Robert W., Shank, Timothy M. (Timothy Mitchell) |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 212 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3416, Theses and Dissertations |
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