Journal article
Exploring the role of Micronesian islands in the maintenance of coral genetic diversity in the Pacific Ocean
SW Davies, EA Treml, CD Kenkel, MV Matz
Molecular Ecology | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1111/mec.13005
Abstract
Understanding how genetic diversity is maintained across patchy marine environments remains a fundamental problem in marine biology. The Coral Triangle, located in the Indo-West Pacific, is the centre of marine biodiversity and has been proposed as an important source of genetic diversity for remote Pacific reefs. Several studies highlight Micronesia, a scattering of hundreds of small islands situated within the North Equatorial Counter Current, as a potentially important migration corridor. To test this hypothesis, we characterized the population genetic structure of two ecologically important congeneric species of reef-building corals across greater Micronesia, from Palau to the Marshall I..
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Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Mark Kirkpatrick, Ulrich Mueller, Mathew Leibold (UT Austin) and Don Levitan (FSU) for numerous critical comments and suggestions and to Randy Rotjan (New England Aquarium) for sharing coral samples from the Phoenix Islands. Thanks to field assistants Matthew Kanke, Tim Kiett, Irina Yakushenok and David Stump. We also acknowledge all permit authorities. This study was supported by the grant from the Coral Reef Conservation programme of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (administered through the Hawaiian Undersea Research Laboratory) and the National Science Foundation grant DEB-1054766 to M.V.M.