Journal
EVOLUTION
Volume 64, Issue 9, Pages 2688-2700Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01003.x
Keywords
Amphiprion clarkii; continuous population; habitat patchiness; marine larvae
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Funding
- National Science Foundation
- NDSEG Fellowship
- International Society for Reef Studies/Ocean Conservancy
- Stanford Biology SCORE
- Myers Oceanographic Trust
- Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation
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Robust estimates of dispersal are critical for understanding population dynamics and local adaptation, as well as for successful spatial management. Genetic isolation by distance patterns hold clues to dispersal, but understanding these patterns quantitatively has been complicated by uncertainty in effective density. In this study, we genotyped populations of a coral reef fish (Amphiprion clarkii) at 13 microsatellite loci to uncover fine-scale isolation by distance patterns in two replicate transects. Temporal changes in allele frequencies between generations suggested that effective densities in these populations are 4-21 adults/km. A separate estimate from census densities suggested that effective densities may be as high as 82-178 adults/km. Applying these effective densities with isolation by distance theory suggested that larval dispersal kernels in A. clarkii had a spread near 11 km (427 km). These kernels predicted low fractions of self-recruitment in continuous habitats, but the same kernels were consistent with previously reported, high self-recruitment fractions (40-60%) when realistic levels of habitat patchiness were considered. Our results suggested that ecologically relevant larval dispersal can be estimated with widely available genetic methods when effective density is measured carefully through cohort sampling and ecological censuses, and that self-recruitment studies should be interpreted in light of habitat patchiness.
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