Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Ensing, Dennis; Prodöhl, Paulo A.; McGinnity, Philip; Boylan, Patrick; O’Maoiléidigh, Niall; Crozier, Walter W.
2011
November
Ecology and Evolution
Complex pattern of genetic structuring in the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) of the River Foyle system in northwest Ireland: disentangling the evolutionary signal from population stochasticity
Validated
WOS: 12 ()
Optional Fields
Anthropogenically induced genetic changes Isolation-by-Distance Metapopulation and member-vagrant models Salmo salar Within-river population structure
1
359
372
Little is known about the microevolutionary processes shaping within river population genetic structure of aquatic organisms characterized by high levels of homing and spawning site fidelity. Using a microsatellite panel, we observed complex and highly significant levels of intrariver population genetic substructure and Isolation-by-Distance, in the Atlantic salmon stock of a large river system. Two evolutionary models have been considered explaining mechanisms promoting genetic substructuring in Atlantic salmon, the member-vagrant and metapopulation models. We show that both models can be simultaneously used to explain patterns and levels of population structuring within the Foyle system. We show that anthropogenic factors have had a large influence on contemporary population structure observed. In an analytical development, we found that the frequently used estimator of genetic differentiation, F-ST, routinely underestimated genetic differentiation by a factor three to four compared to the equivalent statistic Jost's D-est (Jost 2008). These statistics also showed a near-perfect correlation. Despite ongoing discussions regarding the usefulness of "adjusted" F-ST statistics, we argue that these could be useful to identify and quantify qualitative differences between populations, which are important from management and conservation perspectives as an indicator of existence of biologically significant variation among tributary populations or a warning of critical environmental damage.
HOBOKEN
2045-7758
10.1002/ece3.32
Grant Details