tmp909F TMP
tmp909F TMP
tmp909F TMP
Aquat Biol
Department of Ichthyology and Aquatic Environment, School of Agricultural Sciences, University of Thessaly, Fytokou str.,
38446, Volos, Greece
2
Institute of Marine Biology and Genetics, Hellenic Centre of Marine Research, Heraklion, Crete 71003, Greece
Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly, 26 Ploutonos & Aiolou str.,
41221, Larissa, Greece
ABSTRACT: The population structure of marine fishes is often cryptic, due to limited knowledge
about life history and ecological habitats. Understanding environmental stability is a challenge to
retrieve possible structuring patterns responsible for dispersal and demographic habits. In the
present study, a combination of genetic and phenotypic assessments was applied in order to investigate population structure of the saddled seabream Oblada melanura in the Aegean Sea, eastern
Mediterranean basin. Analyses of 6 microsatellite loci and 15 morphometric characters revealed
that saddled seabream individuals differ among northern, southern and central Aegean populations. These observed boundaries may be related to the differentiated seascape of the Aegean
Sea, suggesting that oceanographic factors are a significant stressor for population subdivision of
the saddled seabream. Individual-based landscape genetic approaches and multivariate analysis
of the morphometric characters suggest the presence of habitat-related limitations of saddled
seabream dispersal potential. Molecular genetics and phenotypic analyses along with life-history
traits provide useful informative data for the management and conservation schemes applied for
this species in the Aegean Sea.
KEY WORDS: Oblada melanura Microsatellite Morphometrics Aegean Sea Population structure
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher
species (Arculeo et al. 2003, Pinera et al. 2007, Zulliger et al. 2009, Gonzlez-Wangemert et al. 2011).
Structural patterns are not always correlated with geographic components, but are the result of complex
demographic stochasticity, such as local resources,
social coherence and environmental stability (Galarza
et al. 2009, McCusker & Bentzen 2010, Salmenkova
2011). Despite the fact that oceanographic features,
such as water temperature, salinity and oxygen level,
are known to play a key role in species habitats,
the mechanisms driving the dispersal and population
structure of marine fishes remain unclear.
INTRODUCTION
70
The Mediterranean Sea is a closed basin ecosystem, with a relative high temperature and different
seasonal rainfall patterns and flow dynamics underlying a highly oligotrophic area (Siokou-Frangou et
al. 2002). Spatial and temporal genetic population
structure studies in the Mediterranean Sea report
differentiation between the eastern and western part
of the basin (Vias et al. 2004, Rolland et al. 2007,
Coll et al. 2010), possibly due to historical demographic processes but also due to hydrological and ecological traits (e.g. Magoulas et al. 2006). The majority
of these studies have focused on fish stock exploitation through the population structure of the species
in question, revealing patterns via life-history traits
and biogeographic barriers. Variations in oceanographic features play a key role in the life history of
such species, most obviously on larval dispersal due
to food availability. Species with no pelagic larval
dispersal tend to evolve as highly subdivided populations, suggesting low gene flow between them
(Palumbi 1994), whereas species with longer pelagic
larval duration are expected to present higher gene
flow values and lower population differentiation
(Bohonak 1999).
The saddled seabream Oblada melanura L. belongs to the family Sparidae and occurs in the Mediterranean Sea, eastern Atlantic, Biscay Bay and from
the Strait of Gibraltar to Angola. It is also recorded
in Madeira, Cape Verde and the Canary Islands
(Bauchot & Hureau 1986, Bauchot et al. 1981). It is a
gregarious species, living in coastal regions, on rocky
and seaweed (Posidonia oceanica) beds up to 30 m
deep, creating small schools near the coastline. During the day it hides in small crevices and cavities of
rocky beds (Bauchot & Hureau 1990). It is an omnivorous species, preying on small invertebrates and
phytoplankton (Klaoudatos et al. 1997, Lenfant &
Olive 1998). In the Mediterranean Sea spawning is
from April to June (Bauchot & Hureau 1986) and,
according to Jardas (1996), in the Adriatic Sea in late
summer. The saddled seabream is of high economic
importance in the Mediterranean Sea, as it is a species of interest not only for fisheries but also for
tourists (i.e. angling). It is one of the species that is
targeted to be set in aquaculture enterprises (Klaoudatos et al. 1997), as are many others members of
the Sparidae family.
To evaluate the effectiveness of biodiversity management programs detailed knowledge of the population ecology of the managed species is necessary.
Recent information on the stock definition of sparids,
in particular saddled seabream, is scarce, although
they are commercially and ecologically important fish
71
Fig. 1. Oblada melanura. Oceanographic features (current patterns are illustrated with arrows), sample sites and number of
saddled seabream specimens (n) in the Aegean Sea (after Olson et al. 2007)
HEX, ROX and TAMRA (Invitrogen). The PCR conditions were as follows: 95C for 3 min, followed by
30 cycles of 1 min at 95C, 50 s at TC annealing
of the primer set, and 30 s at 72C, with a final step
of 15 min at 72C. PCR products were verified by
1% agarose gel electrophoresis (Invitrogen). Fluorescently labelled PCR products were run on an ABI
3700 automated sequencer (Applied Biosystems).
Each specimens alleles were scored by STRand
software v.2.0 (Toonen & Hughes 2001) and 10% of
genotypes were rerun for error checking.
Genetic analysis
All loci were tested for the presence of null alleles
or allelic dropout using the software MICRO-
72
Morphometric analysis
Fifteen morphometric characters were measured
on each specimen according to Hubbs & Lagler
(1967). These morphometric characters were: standard length, maximum body depth, minimum body
depth, caudal peduncle length, head length, diameter of eye, preorbital distance, postorbital distance,
predorsal fin distance, dorsal fin height, dorsal fin
base length, anal fin height, anal fin base length,
pectoral fin length and wet weight (Fig. 2). All measurements were taken to the nearest 0.1 mm or mg.
Parameters such as sampling timing, sexual dimorphism, allometric growth, sampling more than one
population in each water body, different phenotypic
groups within the sample, and maturation stage of
the fish could impose some limitations on a study
(Roughgarden 1972, 1974). The effect of allometry
and sexual dimorphism was minimized after the
transformation of the original measurements. In
order to overcome the fourth parameter (sampling
more than one population in each water body) sampling was restricted to as small a geographic area as
possible. As for maturation stage, every effort was
made to choose only mature fish for the analysis. To
minimize any variation resulting from allometric
growth, all morphometric measurements were standardized according to:
e = logY b (logX logX1)
where e is a standardized measurement, Y is character length, b is the slope of log Y against log X plot of
each population, X is the standardized length of the
specimen and X1 is the mean standard length of the
specimen examined. According to Reist (1985), this
transformation best reflects shape variation among
groups independently of size factor. Therefore, total
length and standard lengths of each specimen were
excluded from the final analysis.
Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to
test for the contribution of the remaining 13 morphological characters in the configuration of variance.
Forward stepwise discriminant analysis (DA) based
on the generalized Mahalanobis distance was used to
determine the similarity between populations and
the ability of these characters to identify the specimens correctly. The above analysis was performed
using SPSS v.15.0 statistical software.
RESULTS
A moderately high level of polymorphism was
detected in all tested loci, ranging from 18 alleles at
the Pma1 locus to 93 alleles at the SAI19 locus. However, all loci showed evidence of the presence of
null alleles. These 6 loci also showed departures
from HWE (p < 0.01). Observed heterozygosity values were quite low across all loci for all populations
(mean HOBS = 0.597) and were comparatively lower
than overall expected heterozygosity values (mean
HEXP = 0.898). Values of HOBS, HEXP, FIS and allelic
richness, as well as the numbers of alleles are shown
in Table 1.
FST values between the 8 sampled geographical
areas of the saddled seabream ranged from 0.007
73
74
Table 1. Oblada melanura. Genetic variation at each locus for each population of saddled seabream in the southern, central
and northern Aegean Sea. HOBS: observed heterozygosity; HEXP: expected heterozygosity; FIS: inbreeding index. **p < 0.01
Locus
Parameter
Volos
SAI10
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No. of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No. of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No. of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No. of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
No of alleles
HOBS
HEXP
Allelic richness
FIS
0.697
0.963
7.053
0.277**
45
0.598
0.957
6.912
0.376**
41
0.708
0.973
7.303
0.273**
58
0.467
0.788
4.397
0.408**
13
0.614
0.935
6.48
0.344**
35
0.516
0.917
6.089
0.438**
22
0.600
0.922
6.372
0.353**
SAI12
SAI19
Pma1
Pma2
GA2A
Total
Trikeri
0.5
0.938
6.430
0.474**
13
0.6
0.954
6.795
0.377**
16
0.6
0.933
6.345
0.363**
13
0.556
0.883
5.415
0.377**
9
0.9
0.964
7.039
0.068**
18
1
0.921
6.069
0.089
11
0.693
0.932
6.349
0.262**
Kavala
0.5
0.936
6.436
0.471**
19
0.688
0.901
6.024
0.243**
20
0.5
0.929
6.369
0.47**
23
0.438
0.704
3.542
0.386**
5
0.563
0.944
6.579
0.412**
20
0.5
0.911
5.927
0.459**
9
0.532
0.888
5.813
0.407**
Katerini
Karystos
0.611
0.96
6.965
0.37**
10
0.5
0.954
6.849
0.482**
13
0.842
0.959
6.982
0.125**
15
0.222
0.654
3.511
0.667**
4
0.684
0.963
7.029
0.295**
13
0.579
0.861
5.182
0.333**
9
0.573
0.892
6.086
0.379**
0.5
0.868
5.600
0.498**
15
0.6
0.953
6.772
0.383**
17
0.7
0.974
7.263
0.292**
21
0.4
0.7
3.273
0.442**
8
0.8
0.942
6.61
0.158**
20
0.6
0.921
5.986
0.361**
13
0.600
0.893
5.917
0.356**
Nikiti
Paros
Crete
0.529
0.927
6.270
0.436**
8
0.611
0.951
6.749
0.364**
8
0.765
0.963
7.042
0.211**
8
0.412
0.797
4.471
0.491**
3
0.833
0.96
6.985
0.135**
6
0.556
0.886
5.608
0.38**
5
0.618
0.914
6.188
0.336**
1
1
8
0
11
0.8
0.933
6.6
0.158**
14
0.8
0.956
6.756
0.179**
13
0.2
0.511
2.778
0.636**
5
0.4
0.844
5.178
0.556**
12
0.2
0.867
4.733
0.789**
5
0.567
0.852
5.674
0.386**
0.778
0.928
6.279
0.17
15
0.889
0.967
7.077
0.086
15
0.667
0.954
6.923
0.314**
16
0.125
0.792
3.664
0.851**
6
0.778
0.948
8
0.188**
15
0.333
0.791
3.505
0.593**
12
0.595
0.897
5.990
0.367**
Table 2. Oblada melanura. FST values between the 8 sampled geographical areas of saddled seabream (ns: non-significant,
**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, after Bonferroni correction). Values in parentheses are the recalculated FST values after application of
the ENA method
Volos
Trikeri
Kavala
Katerini
Karystos
Nikiti
Paros
Volos
Trikeri
0.02527***
(0.021***)
Kavala
0.01270ns
(0.012ns)
0.04246***
(0.032***)
Katerini
0.07151***
(0.06***)
0.04333***
(0.0321***)
0.09333***
(0.088***)
Karystos
0.00704ns
(0.003ns)
0.04205***
(0.031***)
0.00875ns
(0.005ns)
0.09069***
(0.089***)
Nikiti
0.06357***
(0.051***)
0.03426***
(0.023***)
0.08249***
(0.074***)
0.01131ns
(0.008ns)
0.08088***
(0.73***)
Paros
0.09476***
(0.082***)
0.04993ns
(0.031ns)
0.11406***
(0.095***)
0.01539ns
(0.009ns)
0.11622***
(0.109***)
0.03062ns
(0.016ns)
Crete
0.07369***
(0.065***)
0.05079**
(0.045**)
0.08885***
(0.081***)
0.02221ns
(0.015ns)
0.08365***
(0.0712***)
0.01958ns
(0.011ns)
0.03425ns
(0.02ns)
Crete
75
Fig. 3. Oblada melanura. Bayesian individual assignment implemented in STRUCTURE for K = 4 clusters without using
geographical area as a prior. The y-axis represents the probability of assignment of an individual to each cluster and each color
corresponds to the suggested cluster
Table 3. Oblada melanura. AMOVA of grouped into 3 areas: northern, central and
southern Aegean Sea. ns: non-significant, ***p < 0.001
df
Between areas
2
Among populations 5
within areas
Within populations 217
Variance
component
SS
19.054 0.00623
36.388
0.11322
735.800
0.82539
Variance
Fixation index
explained (%)
11.2
25.5
63.3
DISCUSSION
76
Eigenvalue
% of
Cumulative
variance
%
7.237
1.194
0.746
55.671
9.187
5.738
55.671
64.857
70.595
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
0.868
0.767
0.724
0.923
0.725
0.615
0.789
0.906
0.466
0.763
0.468
0.845
0.662
0.145
0.138
0.024
0.146
0.192
0.096
0.074
0.197
0.704
0.089
0.604
0.129
0.396
0.019
0.260
0.318
0.003
0.197
0.450
0.231
0.038
0.119
0.040
0.292
0.098
0.412
Moderately high levels of polymorphism were displayed at all 6 microsatellite loci, which is not an
unexpected result given the proposed higher rates of
microsatellite mutation previously reported in marine fishes (OReilly et al. 2004). The reported significant departures from HWE support the presence of
null alleles found in this study, which likely reveal
issues regarding biased patterns of the disequilibrium. Moreover, the observed deviation from HWE
and the relative high inbreeding values may be
related to small sample sizes and/or individuals from
the same progeny. The observed heterozygosity
deficit related to the high FIS values suggests that
saddled seabream do not mate randomly in the study
area and that gene flow may be spatially restricted.
However, the relatively limited gene flow and the
high FST values among samples, along with the differentiation from HWE, might indicate a subdivision
of the populations, suggesting sub-structuring of the
species in the Aegean Sea.
This differentiated pattern in the Aegean Sea was
previously reported in benthopelagic species; these
species in the Aegean Sea seem to exhibit spatial differences with respect to their bentho-geographical
distribution (Vafidis 2002, Kefalas et al. 2003, Voultsiadou 2005a). The authors argue that this dissimilarity
of the north, central and south Aegean Sea conforms
with the prolonged differences in species genetic
and morphological data in relation with geographical
and physicochemical features of the area. The results
of the present study further support such a hypothesis. The phenotypic univariate analysis indicated
significant differences between the 8 populations for
all morphometric characters. DA of morphometric
characters further revealed a clear pattern of population structure segregating the saddled seabream
individuals between the 3 major sub-areas of the
Aegean Sea. The high significance of the morphometric analysis compared with the genetic analysis suggests that oceanographic factors (i.e. currents, cyclonic circulation, bathymetry) are a significant stressor
for environmental plasticity.
According to the literature, barriers in the Aegean
Sea coincide with strong oceanographic fronts of different nature as a result of a near-surface thermohaline circulation involving the low salinity outflow
from the Black Sea in conjunction with the freshwater
input of the continental shelf and the high salinity
input from the south Aegean Sea (Poulos et al. 1997,
Kourafalou et al. 2004). In addition, a basin-wide
cyclonic circulation is taking place, resulting in subbasin scale gyres connected to the complex topography of the area (Nittis & Perivoliotis 2002). Taking
Table 5. Oblada melanura. Discriminant analysis output, showing the percentage of specimen classification in each sampled group (1 to 8). Overall
classification = 66.5%
Population
Volos
Karystos
Kavala
Katerini
Crete
Trikeri
Nikiti
Paros
75.1
20
0
10
0
10
11.1
0
4.2
70
0
5
14.3
0
5.5
0
0
0
31.3
15
0
0
33.3
0
5.7
0
31.2
35
0
10
5.5
0
0
0
0
0
71.4
0
0
66.6
15
0
12.5
15
0
80
0
0
Wilks lambda
0.82288
df
5.60709
0.00186
them in turn, the conditions in the north Aegean contain extended shelf areas, 2 cyclonic and 1 anticyclonic
system and a deep trench of 1500 m, which present
a physical geographical boundary to the central
Aegean. The central Aegean forms extended deep areas, a cyclonic system and a boundary current along
the continental shelf of an elongated island with
Karystos at the southern end. The south Aegean contains many island complexes, a main cyclonic system
and different water masses, and communicates with
the western Mediterranean basin through Crete (for a
review, see Olson et al. 2007). The different cyclone
systems in the Aegean Sea contribute to different
upwelling events and thus differentiated nutrientenriched water masses, suggesting differences in food
resources and availability for biota (Theodorou 2004).
2
Canonical variable II
3
Crete
Volos
Paros
Karystos
Kavala
6
Katerini
7
Trikeri
Nikiti
8
9
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
Canonical variable I
Fig. 6. Oblada melanura. Discriminant analysis plot of populations, where the 13 morphometric characters were used.
Circles represent the percentage of the total of specimens
correctly classified per population. Arrows indicate corresponding population
77
78
an efficient tool, along with genetic data interpretation, for stock definition, and thus would be useful for
a conservation management project plan for Hellenic
coastal resources. However, one cannot exclude the
existence of possible undetected genetic structure
of such populations, which could account for any
detected morphological variation. Such findings are
not unique, as some phenotypic adaptations are not
dependent on genetic mutations. The novelties of
some phenotypic adaptations are not immediately
expressed in the species gene pool. The lack of differences in a study does not preclude the existence of
stock differentiation, even when including the input
of genetic forces, since this is a direct consequence of
environmental adaptation (Schweigert 1991).
Historical processes producing isolation, or low
connectivity in combination with potential bottlenecks in one or more subpopulations (although not
detected in the present data set), could also lead
to morphological and genetic differentiation. Moreover, the observed absence of HWE is maybe due to
genetic drift (e.g. small sample size), and inbreeding
is such a crucial process and is remarkably quite common for species favoring reproduction in the sea. As
inbreeding is caused by mating of genetically related
individuals (common in fishes), it results in increased
homozygosity. Therefore, observed heterozygosities
are likely to be lower than expected. Although this is
not always the case, in the present study inbreeding
within populations was high enough. Furthermore, intense fishing pressure, mainly overfishing, can also
lead to potential bottlenecks and population divergence (see Perez-Ruzafa et al. 2006, Walsh et al. 2006,
Baibai et al. 2012, Limborg et al. 2012), and thus apparent small populations often suffer from the loss of
genetic diversity due to genetic drift and inbreeding
effects. However, the present study assumed a structure between the 3 areas, which affects local effective
population size and thus the level of inbreeding.
Therefore, the considerable population structure revealed by the morphometric characteristics has the
potential to influence the impact on fitness-related
traits to a greater extent than may be expected from
the genetic analysis. The Aegean Sea, being a semienclosed marginal basin of relatively small volume
compared with the open sea, shows an amplified and
very rapid response to climate change (Anagnostou
et al. 2005). A large number of faunal studies in the
area have succeeded in reconstructing the climatic
conditions and documenting the general trend from
the cold, glacial climate conditions of the late Pleistocene to the warm, interglacial conditions of the
Holocene (see Cramp et al. 1988, Geraga et al. 2000).
79
80