Connectivity of Caribbean coral populations: complementary insights from empirical and modelled gene flow

Understanding patterns of connectivity among populations of marine organisms is essential for the development of realistic, spatially explicit models of population dynamics. Two approaches, theoretical and empirical population genetic models, have been used to estimate levels of evolutionary connectivity among marine populations but rarely have their potentially-complementary insights been combined. Here, a spatially-realistic Lagrangian model of larval dispersal and a theoretical genetic model are integrated with the most extensive study of gene flow in a Caribbean marine organism. The 871 genets collected from 26 sites spread over the wider Caribbean sub-sampled 45.8% of the 1900 potential unique genets in the model. At a coarse scale, significant consensus between modelled estimates of genetic structure and empirical genetic data for populations of the reef-building coral Montastraea annularis is observed. However, modelled and empirical data differ in their estimates of connectivity...

解析海洋生物种群间的连通模式，对于构建兼具真实性与空间显式性的种群动态模型至关重要。当前学界主要采用理论种群遗传学模型与经验种群遗传学模型两种途径，估算海洋种群间的演化连通水平，但极少将二者具备互补潜力的研究视角进行整合。本研究将兼具空间真实性的幼虫扩散拉格朗日模型（Lagrangian model）与理论遗传模型，与针对加勒比海某海洋生物迄今最全面的基因流研究相结合。研究团队从遍布加勒比海全域的26个采样位点中共收集到871个基因型株系（genet），该样本覆盖了模型中1900个潜在唯一基因型株系的45.8%。在粗尺度下，观测到造礁珊瑚环纹扁脑珊瑚（Montastraea annularis）种群的模型遗传结构估算结果，与经验遗传数据之间存在显著一致性。但二者在连通水平的估算结果上仍存在差异……