Líffræðifélag Íslands
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2015
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V51
Matthew K Brachmann (1), Kevin Parsons (2), Skuli Skulason (3), Moira Ferguson (1)
1. University of Guelph, Department of Integrative Biology, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 2. University of Glasgow, Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, Glasgow, Scotland, 3. University of Holar, Department of Aquaculture and Fish Biology, Holar, Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Matthew Brachmann
Tengiliður / Corresponding author: Matthew Brachmann (mbrachma@uoguelph.ca)
Intraspecific diversity plays a large role in shaping biodiversity of ecosystems. Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) invaded Iceland during deglaciation roughly 10,000 years ago from a single refugium and underwent rapid diversification forming distinct resource based morphs. Thus, divergent selection pressures are believed to have caused parallel morphological and ecological segregation of charr in a number of lakes. Furthermore, increased morphological and ecological divergence may have resulted in decreased gene flow between morphs. In the current project, sexually mature charr morphs will be sampled from 4 independent lakes across Iceland, as well as from a monomorphic lake and from two anadromous populations. Geometric morphometric and stable isotope analyses will examine parallelism in the axes of morphological and ecological divergence between benthic and pelagic morphs. Next generation sequencing, in combination with genetic admixture models, will be used to assess the amount of gene flow among morphs and its relationship with their morphological and ecological divergence. Parallelism along the axes of morphological and ecological divergence has not been adequately studied in polymorphic freshwater fishes and little is known about how these processes affect gene flow within and among intraspecific morphs. Morphological, ecological, and genetic divergence act to increase intraspecific diversity among freshwater fish.