Navigating the southern seas with small fins: Genetic connectivity of seahorses (Hippocampus abdominalis) across the Tasman Sea

Aim Historical patterns of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere have been well studied, but the effects of coastal oceanography on marine biogeography in this region remain poorly understood relative to northern latitudes. Our study investigates historical and contemporary patterns of migration and dispersal across the Tasman Sea.
Location Coastal regions of the Tasman Sea including southeastern Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.
Taxon Hippocampus abdominalis, the pot-bellied seahorse, one of the most broadly distributed seahorse species, and the only seahorse to have successfully colonized New Zealand from Australia across 2,000 km of open ocean.
Methods We used a multilocus genetic dataset to measure population diversity and differentiation from seahorses across the full species range to investigate contemporary and historical demography, and to reconstruct colonization routes across the Tasman Sea.
Results Genetic data indicate that seahorses colonized New Zealand from ...