Journal article
Cryptic genetic divergence within threatened species of Acropora coral from the Indian and Pacific Oceans
ZT Richards, O Berry, MJH van Oppen
Conservation Genetics | SPRINGER | Published : 2016
Abstract
Most hard corals have broad distributions, and historically this was attributed to their capability for extensive dispersal leading to high evolutionary and demographic inter-dependence among regions. More recently there has been a paradigm shift in the understanding of coral dispersal, driven largely by genetic evidence, which has put greater emphasis on self-recruitment and larval retention. There is now a growing body of evidence that morphologically cryptic species exist within many recognized ‘species’ of stony corals. Here, we characterise levels of genetic divergence within and between five species of Acropora sampled from disparate populations spanning the Indo-Pacific Oceans. We fin..
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Funding Acknowledgements
Thanks to staff of the Orpheus Island Research Station, the College of the Marshall Islands and the Walindii Research Station. We gratefully acknowledge our colleagues who collected additional samples used in this study (Akira Iguchi; Natalie Rosser; David Abrego; Paul Muir). Thank you to Carden Wallace for verifying specimen identifications and Barbara Done for specimen curation at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. We thank Lesa Peplow and Mr. Andy Muirhead for their assistance in labwork conducted at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. We appreciate the constructive comments by an anonymous reviewer. ZR was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Fellowship at James Cook University and an International Society for Reef Studies Fellowship. ZR was supported in the write-up phase by Woodside Energy.