Date:
2018/06/15
Time:
13:45
Room:
A1 Wilhelm
Cryptic genetic biodiversity in freshwater fish: power for detection, and genomic characterization
(Oral)
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SEE PEER REVIEW
Sympatric populations represent conspecific populations that coexist in the same geographical area during at least a part of their life cycle. Such populations are of great interest in evolutionary biology, as they may represent the first steps of sympatric speciation processes and genetic adaptations to ecological niches. From the perspective of conservation and management, identifying and monitoring sympatric populations is imperative; they signify diversity below the species level which has been documented to contribute to the portfolio effect in ecosystem stability.
We hypothesize that sympatric populations are more common than what is currently recognized. There are several reasons to why such populations may have gone largely undetected and thus underrepresented in literature; lower statistical power of detecting population structure without grouping prior to genetic analysis, heterozygote deficiencies being overlooked due to technical biases of the genetic markers used, and that sympatric populations in general may have been perceived somewhat an exception to the rule of niche specialization and competitive exclusion.
We address issues concerning statistical power to detect cryptic genetic structure without grouping of individuals prior to analysis. Employing computer simulations, we evaluate statistical power of different tests in realistic population screenings. Further, we review the literature pertaining to sympatric populations focusing on freshwater salmonids for which most examples of sympatric populations appear to exist. We also use a combination of genetic and genomic techniques to verify and further investigate the population structure of cryptic sympatric populations of brown trout (Salmo trutta), an ecologically and socio-economically important species for which increased efforts are needed to safeguard genetic biodiversity.