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Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals

The Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis, recently have undergone drastic declines primarily as a result of disease. Previous molecular studies have demonstrated that these species form a hybrid (A. prolifera) that varies in abundance throughout the range of the parental distributio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fogarty, Nicole D., Vollmer, Steven V., Levitan, Don R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279358/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22348010
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030486
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author Fogarty, Nicole D.
Vollmer, Steven V.
Levitan, Don R.
author_facet Fogarty, Nicole D.
Vollmer, Steven V.
Levitan, Don R.
author_sort Fogarty, Nicole D.
collection PubMed
description The Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis, recently have undergone drastic declines primarily as a result of disease. Previous molecular studies have demonstrated that these species form a hybrid (A. prolifera) that varies in abundance throughout the range of the parental distribution. There is variable unidirectional introgression across loci and sites of A. palmata genes flowing into A. cervicornis. Here we examine the efficacy of prezygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms within these corals including spawning times and choice and no-choice fertilization crosses. We show that these species have subtly different mean but overlapping spawning times, suggesting that temporal isolation is likely not an effective barrier to hybridization. We found species-specific differences in gametic incompatibilities. Acropora palmata eggs were relatively resistant to hybridization, especially when conspecific sperm are available to outcompete heterospecific sperm. Acropora cervicornis eggs demonstrated no evidence for gametic incompatibility and no evidence of reduced viability after aging four hours. This asymmetry in compatibility matches previous genetic data on unidirectional introgression.
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spelling pubmed-32793582012-02-17 Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals Fogarty, Nicole D. Vollmer, Steven V. Levitan, Don R. PLoS One Research Article The Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis, recently have undergone drastic declines primarily as a result of disease. Previous molecular studies have demonstrated that these species form a hybrid (A. prolifera) that varies in abundance throughout the range of the parental distribution. There is variable unidirectional introgression across loci and sites of A. palmata genes flowing into A. cervicornis. Here we examine the efficacy of prezygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms within these corals including spawning times and choice and no-choice fertilization crosses. We show that these species have subtly different mean but overlapping spawning times, suggesting that temporal isolation is likely not an effective barrier to hybridization. We found species-specific differences in gametic incompatibilities. Acropora palmata eggs were relatively resistant to hybridization, especially when conspecific sperm are available to outcompete heterospecific sperm. Acropora cervicornis eggs demonstrated no evidence for gametic incompatibility and no evidence of reduced viability after aging four hours. This asymmetry in compatibility matches previous genetic data on unidirectional introgression. Public Library of Science 2012-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3279358/ /pubmed/22348010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030486 Text en Fogarty et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Fogarty, Nicole D.
Vollmer, Steven V.
Levitan, Don R.
Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title_full Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title_fullStr Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title_full_unstemmed Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title_short Weak Prezygotic Isolating Mechanisms in Threatened Caribbean Acropora Corals
title_sort weak prezygotic isolating mechanisms in threatened caribbean acropora corals
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279358/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22348010
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030486
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