Do physical barriers hamper dispersal in the deep sea?
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Abstract
The presence of topographic features, such as mid-ocean ridges, can divide the abyss into basins, which can be interconnected through gaps and potentially affect species distribution and dispersal. Holding endemic and widespread species, nematodes represent ideal organisms to study species-range sizes, dispersal, distribution, and turnover in the deep sea. On board of the RV Sonne to the Vema Fracture Zone (VFZ), our study aimed to investigate if: a) The VFZ represent a barrier to gene flow; b) Genetic differentiation increase with increasing geographic distance; c) Species-range size for nematodes (< 100 km vs. > 1000 km)?. Based on integrative taxonomy (molecular and morphology-based methods) and community analyses, our results suggest no geographical trend, indicating a weak correlation between genetic divergence and geographical distance. Nevertheless, most species were restricted to one area (62.5 – 76 %), while 24 – 37.5 % of the species were shared between areas. These results suggest that the VFZ may not limit dispersal completely, reacting like a sharp boundary, but it might act as a transition zone, restricting dispersal. Additionally, our results bring new insights on species turnover and species-range sizes in the deep sea, which will help to manage and estimate the potential impacts of anthropogenic activities.
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2018. Do physical barriers hamper dispersal in the deep sea? PeerJ Preprints 6:e26492v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26492v1Author comment
This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Lidia Lins conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Sofie Derycke analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Tania Nara Campinas Bezerra analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Ann Vanreusel conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
The data is not yet complete
Funding
The Vema-TRANSIT expedition was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF grant no. 03G0237A to Angelika Brandt). Lidia Lins was financed by projects Marine Bio Services Exploration/ Ghent University (B/14146/03) and Kurambio II (03G0250A). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.