Indo-Pacific phylogeography of the lemon sponge Leucetta chagosensis
Date
2020-12-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
The sponge Leucetta chagosensisDendy (1913) has a wide distribution throughout the Indo-Pacific
(IP) region, with previous studies focussing primarily on the western Pacific Ocean. To increase our
knowledge of the spatial variation of genetic diversity throughout the IP, we constructed a phylogeny for
L. chagosensis for the IP to assess the evolutionary patterns for this species. We generated 188 sequences
of L. chagosensis and constructed maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference trees, using concatenated
mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 3 gene (cox3) and nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (28S) markers
for the first time. The spatial variation of genetic diversity of L. chagosensis was assessed using a
phylogeographic approach. Leucetta chagosensis is composed of five cryptic lineages confined to different
biogeographic regions with the specimens found in the Indian Ocean differing significantly from those
found in the rest of the IP region. Genetic divergence was particularly high for the cox3 marker, with
a low nucleotide diversity but high haplotype diversity for most lineages. This study highlights the
need for a sustained effort in studying sponge diversity, boosted by the ongoing discovery of hidden
biodiversity among this ecologically important taxon.
Description
CITATION: Pasnin, O. et al. 2020. Indo-Pacific phylogeography of the lemon sponge Leucetta chagosensis. Diversity, 12(12):466, doi:10.3390/d12120466.
The original publication is available at https://www.mdpi.com
The original publication is available at https://www.mdpi.com
Keywords
Marine species diversity, Phylogeography -- Indo-Pacific, Sponges -- Phylogeny, Sponges -- Effect of temperature on
Citation
Pasnin, O. et al. 2020. Indo-Pacific phylogeography of the lemon sponge Leucetta chagosensis. Diversity, 12(12):466, doi:10.3390/d12120466.