Genetic connectivity in scleractinian corals across the Northern Gulf of Mexico: oil/gas platforms, and relationship to the Flower Garden Banks.

Paul W Sammarco,Daniel A Brazeau,James Sinclair,Sharyn Jane Goldstien

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030144

Abstract

The 3,000 oil/gas structures currently deployed in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) provide hard substratum for marine organisms in a region where such has been rare since the Holocene. The major exception to this are the Flower Garden Banks (FGB). Corals are known to have colonized oil/gas platforms around the FGB, facilitating biogeographic expansion. We ask the question, what are the patterns of genetic affinity in these coral populations. We sampled coral tissue from populations of two species occurring on oil and gas platforms: Madracis decactis (hermatype) and Tubastraea coccinea (invasive ahermatype). We sampled 28 platforms along four transects from 20 km offshore to the continental shelf edge off 1) Matagorda Island, TX; 2) Lake Sabine, TX; 3) Terrebonne Bay, LA; and 4) Mobile, AL. The entire population of M. decactis was sampled between depths of 5 m and 37 m. T. coccinea populations were sub-sampled. Genetic variation was assessed using the PCR-based Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs). Data were analyzed via AFLPOP and STRUCTURE. Genetic connectivity among M. decactis platform populations was highest near the FGB and decreased to the east. Connectivity increased again in the eastern sector, indicating isolation between the populations from different sides of the Mississippi River (Transects 3 and 4). A point-drop in genetic affinity (relatedness) at the shelf edge south of Terrebonne Bay, LA indicated a population differing from all others in the northern GOM. Genetic affinities among T. coccinea were highest in the west and decreased to the east. Very low genetic affinities off Mobile, AL indicated a dramatic difference between those populations and those west of the Mississippi River, apparently a formidable barrier to larval dispersal.

Highlights

Prior to the 1940s, the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was characterized primarily by terrigenous, sandy muds with low habitat diversity [1,2]
We focused on one hermatypic scleractinian coral species and one ahermatypic one which occur on the platforms in the northern GOM and on the Flower Garden Banks (FGB)
Relationship between Genetic Distance and Geographical Distance for Madracis decactis In examining Madracis decactis, the results derived from STRUCTURE revealed a clear pattern

Summary

Introduction

Prior to the 1940s, the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was characterized primarily by terrigenous, sandy muds with low habitat diversity [1,2]. Offshore drilling for oil and gas began there and production platforms grew steadily in number, spreading southward across the continental shelf. Those platforms served as substrate for colonization of numerous marine organisms, and this process has continued [3,4,5,6,7,8]. These production platforms extend up from the bottom into the atmosphere, creating an island and providing hard substrate through all depths of the water column [9] that would otherwise not be available to benthic or demersal marine organisms. We and others have documented the presence of both hermatypic (zooxanthellate, reef-building) and ahermatypic (azooxanthellate, non-reef-building) scleractinian corals on many of these platforms [5,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]

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Conclusion