Meeting Abstract
Conservation of vulnerable marine ecosystems is imperative in the light of global ocean change and increasing anthropogenic disturbances. To help address these issues, marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established in an effort to manage and reduce the overall impact of anthropogenic activities and serve as a key strategy for restoration of benthic communities in response to catastrophes such as the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As marine systems are often considered “open” with few barriers to gene flow, understanding what factors promote or impede genetic connectivity over depth and horizontal spatial scales of key structure forming foundation species is important for management and conservation. Species that occupy deeper depth ranges are hypothesized to have greater genetic connectivity than shallow water species, implying that management plans need to be tailored to communities of varying depths. To address these concerns, we have investigated the genetic connectivity of four different coral species occupying three putative depth ranges: mesophotic (70-150 m), upper continental slope (400-1,100 m), and lower continental slope (1,300-2,400 m). Further, we have incorporated physical oceanographic modeling approaches with our population genomic analyses. We will present comparative population genetic structure at different depths, including directionality analyses, and relative rates of genetic exchange among coral populations with integrated outcomes from predictive larval dispersal models. These results were produced in collaboration with resource managers and will be utilized in management decisions for conservation and restoration of benthic habitats in the Gulf of Mexico.
