[Coral-List] The battle for biodiversity

[Bruno, John F]

A case in point is the spiny lobster fishery of Florida. It has been shown
through analysis of mitochondrial DNA (Silberman, et. al., 1994) that, as
expected, genetic analysis shows no evidence of genetic structure in the spiny
lobster (P. argus) population, which is consistent with a high gene flow
throughout the population. This also indicates that the population of spiny
lobsters in Florida is dependent on larval influx from Caribbean sources.


Martin, thank you for that really interesting post, especially your insights on the response of lobster fishers to NOAAs catch shares plan.  Not to suggest that I know anything about lobster population genetics, but the lack of genetic structure within a population (or among populations) doesn't necessarily mean strong demographic connectivity and that result certainly doesn't indicate that "the population of spiny lobsters in Florida is dependent on larval influx from Caribbean sources".  For one, a relatively small degree of migration between subpopulations can be enough to genetically homogenize them without creating much if any demographic connectivity.  Even if there were effective demographic connectivity between Florida and Caribbean populations, that would not necessarily mean the Florida populations were a sink and wholly dependent on larval subsidies.

JB

John Bruno
Associate Professor
UNC Chapel Hill
www.brunolab.net<http://www.brunolab.net>