The blue and red shrimp Aristeus antenantus supports an important commercial fishery in the Western Mediterranean, adjacent Atlantic waters and Mozambique Channel (western Indian Ocean). This study investigates its genetic structure by examining a total of 506 individuals from Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean locations. In order to identify putative genetic stocks, sequences from 16S rDNA (546 bp) and COI (514 bp) genes were used. Genetic diversity, estimated by haplotypic and nucleotidic diversity, was lower in the Western Mediterranean than in samples from other locations. The high haplotypic diversity of the Eastern Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean samples reflects the occurrence of a number of private haplotypes, which are also responsible for significant genetic divergence between these samples and the Western Mediterranean ones. The analysis of mismatch distributions, neutrality tests, and star-like patterns present in the network of haplotypes provided consistent inference of past population expansion in the Western Mediterranean, Atlantic and Mozambique Channel regions. Our study provides the first evidence of genetic structuring in A. antennatus across its distributional range.KEY WORDS: Aristeus antennatus · COI · 16S rDNA · Genetic structure · Atlantic Ocean · Mediterranean Sea · Western Indian Ocean
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 421: [163][164][165][166][167][168][169][170][171] 2011 roboration of Atlantic-Mediterranean differentiation has been provided by multiple examples of the population structure of marine species, from pioneer work on crustaceans (Chthamalus montagui, Dando & Southward 1981), mollusks (Mytilus galloprovincialis, Quesada et al. 1995a,b; Sepia officinalis, Pérez-Losada et al. 1999) and fishes (Platichthys flesus, Borsa et al. 1997; Merluccius merluccius, Roldán et al. 1998) down to the present day.The blue and red shrimp Aristeus antennatus (Risso, 1816) is an important commercial deep-sea species that inhabits the Mediterranean, northeast Atlantic waters from Portugal to the Cape Verde Islands (Holthuis 1980), and the Indian Ocean from the Maldive Islands to Zanzibar, Mozambique and South Africa (Freitas 1985). In recent years, it has also been recorded off the northern coasts of Brazil (Serejo et al. 2007). A. antennatus is a eurybathic species ranging from 80 to 3300 m depth, with peaks of abundance at 600 to 900 m depth (Campillo 1994, Sardà et al. 2004). Its abundance is also geographically variable, with density in the Western Mediterranean being higher than that in the eastern basin ). Significant morphological differences have been observed in individuals from the 2 basins. However, no allozyme divergence was found (Sardà et al. 1998) and the differences were explained as being a response to hydrological and ecological characteristics of the 2 Mediterranean basins (Sarà 1985). Recently, new molecular markers (microsatellites, Cannas et al. 2008; mitochondrial control region, ...