Data from: Asynchronous spawning in sympatric populations of a hard coral reveals cryptic species and ancient genetic lineages

Full description

Genetic subdivision within a species is a vital component of the evolution of biodiversity. In some species of Acropora corals in Western Australia, conspecific individuals spawn in two seasons 6 months apart, which has the potential to impede gene flow and result in genetic divergence. Genetic comparison of sympatric spring and autumn spawners of Acropora samoensis was conducted to assess the level of reproductive isolation and genetic divergence between the spawning groups based on multiple loci (13 microsatellite loci, the mitochondrial control region and two nuclear introns). Bayesian clustering and principal coordinate analysis of the microsatellite loci showed a high level of genetic differentiation between the spawning groups (F’ST = 0.30; P < 0.001), as did the sequence data from PaxC and Calmodulin (ΦST = 0.97 and 0.31, respectively). At the PaxC locus, the autumn and spring spawners were associated with two divergent lineages that were separated by an evolutionary distance of 1.7% and statistical tests indicate divergent selection in PaxC, suggesting this gene may play a role in coral spawning. This study indicates that the autumn and spring spawners represent two cryptic species, and highlights the importance of asynchronous spawning as a mechanism influencing speciation in corals.,Microsatellite data of Acropora samoensisThis is the raw data from the 13 microsatellites that were genotyped in 80 individuals of Acropora samoensis in this study.Microsatellite dataset.csvCalmodulin_alignnmentThis is a Nexus file of the aligned sequences of the nuclear gene "Calmodulin" that were sequenced in this study.mtDNA_CR_alignmentThis is a Nexus file of the aligned sequences of the mitochondrial gene "Control Region" that were sequenced in this study.PaxC_cds_alignmentThis is a Nexus file of the aligned sequences of an 882 bp fragment of the CODING REGION of the nuclear gene "PaxC" that were sequenced in this study.PaxC_intron_alignmentThis is a Nexus file of the aligned sequences of the nuclear "PaxC" INTRON that were sequenced in this study.S4-WAM & GenBank Accession NumbersLists all the GenBank accession numbers for voucher specimens.S4-WAM_GenBank_Accession_No.docx,

Notes

Associated Persons
Natalie L. Rosser (Creator)