Abstract
Earthquake/tsunamis can have profound impacts on species and their genetic patterns. It is expected that the magnitude of this impact might depend on the species and the time since the disturbance occurs, nevertheless these assumptions remain mostly unexplored. Here we studied the genetic responses of the crustacean species Emerita analoga, Excirolana hirsuticauda, and Orchestoidea tuberculata to the 27F mega-earthquake/tsunami that occurred in Chile in February 2010. mtDNA sequence analyses revealed a lower haplotype diversity for E. analoga and E. hirsuticauda in impacted areas one month after the 27F, and the opposite for O. tuberculata. Three years after the 27F we observed a recovery in the genetic diversity of E. analoga and E. hirsuticauda and decrease in the genetic diversity in O. tuberculata in 2/3 of sampled areas. Emerita analoga displayed decrease of genetic differentiation and increase in gene flow explained by long-range population expansion. The other two species revealed slight increase in the number of genetic groups, little change in gene flow and no signal of population expansion associated to adult survival, rapid colonization, and capacity to burrow in the sand. Our results reveal that species response to a same disturbance event could be extremely diverse and depending on life-history traits and the magnitude of the effect.
Highlights
Large-scale natural disturbances can have profound impacts on ecosystems, affecting several ecological and fitness traits of key species through the reduction in population sizes and habitat destruction (e.g.1–4)
The number of genetic clusters decreased throughout time in E. analoga and slightly increased in E. hirsuticauda and O. tuberculata
Emerita analoga populations in the impacted area were well differentiated in T1, while they were part of the largest cluster in T2 (Fig. 3a,b)
Summary
Large-scale natural disturbances can have profound impacts on ecosystems, affecting several ecological and fitness traits of key species through the reduction in population sizes and habitat destruction (e.g.1–4). We evaluated the population genetic response to the 27F mega-earthquake and tsunami in three common crustacean species of Chilean sandy beach ecosystems: Emerita analoga, Excirolana hirsuticauda, and Orchestoidea tuberculata These species have diverse life history traits, which have differential consequences on their dispersal ability (Fig. 1). The talitrid amphipod O. tuberculata inhabits the upper level of the intertidal zone[36,37,38,39,40] of Chile (35°S–40°S), with females incubating their offspring to the juvenile stage and low dispersal potential These three species were strongly affected by the 27F mega-earthquake, but their responses varied intraspecific and interspecifically depending upon the particular impacts experienced by the diverse populations (variation of uplift level and tsunami height depending on the beach) and the species studied[4,41]. A fast recovery of population genetic diversity was expected in this species given the presence of a free larval stage with a high dispersion potential
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