Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam

Population outbreaks of the corallivorous crown-of-thorns seastar (COTS), Acanthaster ‘planci’ L., are among the most important biological disturbances of tropical coral reefs. Over the past 50 years, several devastating outbreaks have been documented around Guam, an island in the western Pacific Oc...

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Main Authors:	Tusso, Sergio, Morcinek, Kerstin, Vogler, Catherine, Schupp, Peter J., Caballes, Ciemon F., Vargas, Sergio, Wörheide, Gert
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	PeerJ Inc. 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4860296/

id	pubmed-4860296
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-48602962016-05-10 Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam Tusso, Sergio Morcinek, Kerstin Vogler, Catherine Schupp, Peter J. Caballes, Ciemon F. Vargas, Sergio Wörheide, Gert Biogeography Population outbreaks of the corallivorous crown-of-thorns seastar (COTS), Acanthaster ‘planci’ L., are among the most important biological disturbances of tropical coral reefs. Over the past 50 years, several devastating outbreaks have been documented around Guam, an island in the western Pacific Ocean. Previous analyses have shown that in the Pacific Ocean, COTS larval dispersal may be geographically restricted to certain regions. Here, we assess the genetic structure of Pacific COTS populations and compared samples from around Guam with a number of distant localities in the Pacific Ocean, and focused on determining the degree of genetic structure among populations previously considered to be isolated. Using microsatellites, we document substantial genetic structure between 14 localities from different geographical regions in the Pacific Ocean. Populations from the 14 locations sampled were found to be structured in three significantly differentiated groups: (1) all locations immediately around Guam, as well as Kingman Reef and Swains Island; (2) Japan, Philippines, GBR and Vanuatu; and (3) Johnston Atoll, which was significantly different from all other localities. The lack of genetic differentiation between Guam and extremely distant populations from Kingman Reef and Swains Island suggests potential long-distance dispersal of COTS in the Pacific. PeerJ Inc. 2016-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4860296/ /pubmed/27168979 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1970 Text en ©2016 Tusso et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Tusso, Sergio Morcinek, Kerstin Vogler, Catherine Schupp, Peter J. Caballes, Ciemon F. Vargas, Sergio Wörheide, Gert
spellingShingle	Tusso, Sergio Morcinek, Kerstin Vogler, Catherine Schupp, Peter J. Caballes, Ciemon F. Vargas, Sergio Wörheide, Gert Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
author_facet	Tusso, Sergio Morcinek, Kerstin Vogler, Catherine Schupp, Peter J. Caballes, Ciemon F. Vargas, Sergio Wörheide, Gert
author_sort	Tusso, Sergio
title	Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
title_short	Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
title_full	Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
title_fullStr	Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
title_full_unstemmed	Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam
title_sort	genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the pacific ocean, with focus on guam
description	Population outbreaks of the corallivorous crown-of-thorns seastar (COTS), Acanthaster ‘planci’ L., are among the most important biological disturbances of tropical coral reefs. Over the past 50 years, several devastating outbreaks have been documented around Guam, an island in the western Pacific Ocean. Previous analyses have shown that in the Pacific Ocean, COTS larval dispersal may be geographically restricted to certain regions. Here, we assess the genetic structure of Pacific COTS populations and compared samples from around Guam with a number of distant localities in the Pacific Ocean, and focused on determining the degree of genetic structure among populations previously considered to be isolated. Using microsatellites, we document substantial genetic structure between 14 localities from different geographical regions in the Pacific Ocean. Populations from the 14 locations sampled were found to be structured in three significantly differentiated groups: (1) all locations immediately around Guam, as well as Kingman Reef and Swains Island; (2) Japan, Philippines, GBR and Vanuatu; and (3) Johnston Atoll, which was significantly different from all other localities. The lack of genetic differentiation between Guam and extremely distant populations from Kingman Reef and Swains Island suggests potential long-distance dispersal of COTS in the Pacific.
publisher	PeerJ Inc.
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4860296/
_version_	1613576789889646592

Genetic structure of the crown-of-thorns seastar in the Pacific Ocean, with focus on Guam

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