Morphometric or morpho-anatomal and genetic investigations highlight allopatric speciation in Western Mediterranean lagoons within the Atherina lagunae species (Teleostei, Atherinidae)

Some Marine Tunisian Atherina boyeri Populations (Teleostei) have Morphological and Molecular Characteristics of Lagoon Fishes

“…All were preserved in 10% formalin. Several morpho-anatomical parameters were examined, i.e., 10 cephalic, 28 body and 40 body-cephalic ratios and 9 meristic parameters (detailed in [20]). For multivariate analyses Canonical Discrimination Analysis (CAN-DISC) was applied [22].…”

“…[5,6,[11][12][13][14]). However, the greatest morphological, morphometric and meristic variations have been found in A. lagunae populations suggesting allopatric differentiation [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Recently, we have proposed an evolutionary pattern of the three species of the A. boyeri complex [20], including firstly sympatric speciations followed by a post-Pleistocene colonization of the lagoons.…”

“…However, the greatest morphological, morphometric and meristic variations have been found in A. lagunae populations suggesting allopatric differentiation [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Recently, we have proposed an evolutionary pattern of the three species of the A. boyeri complex [20], including firstly sympatric speciations followed by a post-Pleistocene colonization of the lagoons. Similarly, it has been suggested that during the cold periods, fish of the A. boyeri complex probably went extinct from the Portuguese coasts and present populations are due to recent recolonizations from western Mediterranean refugia [21].…”

Environmental variables, habitat discontinuity and life history shaping the genetic structure of Pomatoschistus marmoratus

“…On the other hand, the lack of significance in the AMOVA comparisons between groups could be also due to low power associate with a low number of populations per group such as was described by Fitzpatrick (2009). Therefore, according to our results from F ST values, Cavalli-Sforza genetic distances, correspondence analysis and significant genic and genotypic differentiation, we suggested that the highest genetic divergence observed between samples (Mazarrón and the rest of localities) could be consequence of the isolation of lagoonal populations from open sea which has been already reported in other coastal fishes such as Pomatoschistus minutus Berrebi et al 2009), Dicentrarchus labrax (Lemaire et al 2000), Atherina lagunae (Trabelsi et al 2004), Atherina boyeri (Kraitsek et al 2008;Milana et al 2012), Diplodus sargus (González-Wangüemert and Pérez-Ruzafa 2012) and several invertebrate species (Camilli et al 2001;González-Wangüemert et al 2006;Tarnowska et al 2010;Vergara-Chen et al 2010b).…”

“…These ecosystems suffer frequent environmental disturbances, being exposed to wide fluctuations on their physical-chemical parameters (Pérez-Ruzafa et al 2005. Such environmental variation may subject the local fauna to severe adaptive challenges that could have a direct effect on the genetic composition of some species such as Aphanius fasciatus, Diplodus sargus, Elysia timida, Cerastoderma glaucum, Ostrea edulis, Ostreola stentina and Bursatella leachii (Cognetti and Maltagliati 2000;Maltagliati 2002;González-Wangüemert et al 2004, 2009Giménez-Casalduero et al 2011; or separate species into different populations (Bilton et al 2002;Trabelsi et al 2004;González-Wangüemert et al 2009;Richards et al 2010;Fluker et al 2011;Vergara-Chen et al 2013;González-Wangüemert et al 2014). The isolation and habitat fragmentation have been also supposed to contribute to the genetic structure of marine species with populations inhabiting coastal lagoons, enhancing the effects of microevolutionary processes (Watts and Johnson 2004).…”