title: Genetics: relatedness among east African coelacanths.
abstract: Coelacanths were discovered in the Comoros archipelago to the northwest of Madagascar in 1952. Since then, these rare, ancient fish have been found to the south off Mozambique, Madagascar and South Africa, and to the north off Kenya and Tanzania -- but it was unclear whether these are separate populations or even subspecies. Here we show that the genetic variation between individuals from these different locations is unexpectedly low. Combined with earlier results from submersible and oceanographic observations, our findings indicate that a separate African metapopulation is unlikely to have existed and that locations distant from the Comoros were probably inhabited relatively recently by either dead-end drifters or founders that originated in the Comoros.
authors.affiliation: Physiologische Chemie I, Biozentrum, University of Wuerzburg, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schartl
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Hornung
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hissmann
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schauer
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fricke
mesh_terms: D000351:Africa, Eastern; D000818:Animals; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005399:Fishes / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial