Abstract
Understanding the evolutionary processes from recent demographic history is especially difficult for interstitial organisms due to their poorly known natural history. In this study, the genetic variation and population history of the four Ototyphlonemertes (Diesing in Sitz ber Math Nat Kl Akad Wiss Wien 46:413-416, 1863) species were evaluated from samples collected along the Brazilian coast (between 2731 0 S and 1300 0 W) in 2006. The mito- chondrial region cytochrome c oxidase subunit 3 (COX3) is analyzed to assess the genetic variation of these dioecious species. Although these species have a sympatric distri- bution along the coast, our data suggest that their levels of differentiation and their demographic histories differ sharply. There is strong evidence of gene flow among demes in O. erneba and O. evelinae, and their level of structuring is much lower than for the other two species. Indeed, the COX3 fragment reveals cryptic lineages in O. lactea and O. parmula. The results seem to contradict the high genetic structuring and low intrapopulational variability expected with the ecological constriction and habitat discontinuity faced by these organisms, meaning that there might be gene flow among populations or their dispersal capability has been underestimated.
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