Abstract
Species within the scleractinian genus Pocillopora Lamarck 1816 exhibit extreme phenotypic plasticity, making identification based on morphology difficult. However, the mitochondrial open reading frame (mtORF) marker provides a useful genetic tool for identification of most species in this genus, with a notable exception of P. eydouxi and P. meandrina. Based on recent genomic work, we present a quick and simple, gel-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method for the identification of all six Pocillopora species occurring in Hawai‘i by amplifying either the mtORF region, a newly discovered histone region, or both, and then using the restriction enzymes targeting diagnostic sequences we unambiguously identify each species. Using this approach, we documented frequent misidentification of Pocillopora species based on colony morphology. We found that P. acuta colonies are frequently mistakenly identified as P. damicornis in Kāne‘ohe Bay, O‘ahu. We also found that P. meandrina likely has a northern range limit in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, above which P. ligulata was regularly mistaken for P. meandrina.
Highlights
Species in the scleractinian genus Pocillopora Lamarck 1816 are known to exhibit extreme phenotypic plasticity (Pinzón et al, 2013; Marti-Puig et al, 2014; Paz-García et al, 2015a; Paz-García et al, 2015b; Gélin et al, 2017), making identification in the field difficult, when colonies are small
We present a fast, simple, and inexpensive assay based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of PCR amplicons that unambiguously differentiates all six Pocillopora species found in Hawai‘i. We hypothesized that we could use this molecular assay to show that many species are currently misidentified with traditional gross colony morphology-based approaches using two examples
Of the 691 samples displaying classical P. meandrina morphology collected across the Hawaiian Islands, one-third (222 samples) were not P. meandrina
Summary
Species in the scleractinian genus Pocillopora Lamarck 1816 are known to exhibit extreme phenotypic plasticity (Pinzón et al, 2013; Marti-Puig et al, 2014; Paz-García et al, 2015a; Paz-García et al, 2015b; Gélin et al, 2017), making identification in the field difficult, when colonies are small. Individuals displaying the classic P. meandrina Dana 1846 morphology in the Society Islands were recently targeted for a population genetic study; genetic sequencing of the widely used mitochondrial open reading frame (mtORF) marker (Flot et al, 2008) revealed the presence of six different genetic lineages (Edmunds et al, 2016). P. meandrina and P. eydouxi Milne Edwards 1860 share an identical sequence at this locus (mtORF type 1 (Pinzón et al, 2013)) even though genomic data have. How to cite this article Johnston et al (2018), A simple molecular technique for distinguishing species reveals frequent misidentification of Hawaiian corals in the genus Pocillopora. Schmidt-Roach et al (2014a) found that P. eydouxi colonies have a styloid columella in Eastern Australia, whereas P. meandrina colonies present mostly convex, oval columellas
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