Genetic patterns across an invasion's history: a test of change versus stasis for the Eurasian round goby in North America

Biological invasions comprise accidental evolutionary experiments, whose genetic compositions underlie relative success, spread, and persistence in new habitats. However, little is known about whether, or how, their population genetic patterns change temporally and/or spatially across the invasion's history. Theory predicts that most would undergo founder effect, exhibit low genetic divergence across the new range, and gain variation over time via new arriving propagules. To test these predictions, we analyze population genetic diversity and divergence patterns of the Eurasian round goby Neogobius melanostomus across the two decades of its North American invasion in the Laurentian Great Lakes, comparing results from 13 nuclear DNA microsatellite loci and mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b sequences. We test whether “genetic stasis”, “genetic replacement”, and/or “genetic supplement” scenarios have occurred at the invasion's core and expansion sites, in comparison to its primary native sourc...