Diapausing egg banks, lake size, and genetic diversity in the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis Müller (Rotifera, Monogononta)

Montero-Pau, Javier; Serra, Manuel; Gómez, Africa

Abstract

Diapausing egg banks are reservoirs of ecological and genetic diversity in continental zooplankton. However, although habitat size has often been used as a proxy for population size, the relationship between the size of diapausing egg banks and genetic diversity has not been explicitly tested in zooplankton. We estimated the density and size of diapausing egg banks, habitat size and the genetic diversity of 14 populations of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis in a endorheic basin in the SE Iberian Peninsula. The size of B. plicatilis diapausing egg banks ranged across eight orders of magnitude (from 257 to 4.9·1010 eggs). Despite the small geographical scale, populations were strongly structured genetically, but with no evidence of isolation by distance. Habitat size (lake area) was a better predictor of genetic diversity than the total diapausing egg bank size, but only for mtDNA haplotype diversity. However, as these results were driven by the strong effect of the largest lake in the database, they should be taken with caution. Our results suggest that large lakes could have a disproportionate effect on genetic diversity and that more work is needed to support the use of habitat size as a proxy of population size in rotifers.

Citation

Montero-Pau, J., Serra, M., & Gómez, A. (2017). Diapausing egg banks, lake size, and genetic diversity in the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis Müller (Rotifera, Monogononta). Hydrobiologia, 796(1), 77-91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-016-2833-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 14, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 27, 2016
• Publication Date: 2017-07
• Deposit Date: May 24, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 23, 2017
• Journal: Hydrobiologia
• Print ISSN: 0018-8158
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 796
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 77-91
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-016-2833-4
• Keywords: Genetic diversity; Zooplankton; Habitat size; Diapausing egg banks; Rotifera; Brachionus plicatilis
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/438645
• Publisher URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-016-2833-4
• Additional Information: This is a copy of an open access article which has been published in: Hydrobiologia.
• Contract Date: Nov 23, 2017