Meeting Abstract

P1.150  Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30  Microclimates affect the genomic composition of Hawaiian limpets GURSKI, L.M.*; FURINESS, S.; COCKETT, P.; PENNOYER, K.; BIRD, C.E.; Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi; Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi; Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi; Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi; Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi lgurski@islander.tamucc.edu

The crashed Hawaiian limpet fishery, is an excellent system in which to study the effects of overharvesting on genetic diversity, composition and adaptive capacity in a highly genetically structured population. The Hawaiian limpet, Cellana exarata, exhibits substantial gene flow restriction among islands, lives high in the intertidal zone and experiences increasingly hotter and more desiccating conditions due to global climate change. Here, we employ genome-wide sequencing (~20K SNPs) to test for alleles that are more prevalent in three different rocky shoreline microhabitats: hot horizontal surfaces, cooler vertical surfaces, and even cooler crevices. We perform this test across an overharvesting gradient from the least impacted Big Island of Hawaiʻi to the most impacted island of Oʻahu. We identify several genes that are affected by microhabitat, but detect little effect of overharvesting on the adaptive capacity of the limpets. The low level of overharvesting impact on adaptive capacity may be due to low levels of gene flow from adjacent islands, and the severely reduced Oʻahu population may remain large enough to buffer the extinction of advantageous alleles.