Recent invasion of the tropical Atlantic by an Indo-Pacific coral reef fish.
The last tropical connection between Atlantic and Indian-Pacific habitats closed c. 2 million years ago (Ma), with the onset of cold-water upwelling off southwestern Africa. Yet comparative morphology indicates more recent connections in several taxa, including reef-associated gobies (genus Gnatholepis). Coalescence and phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA cytochrome b sequences demonstrate that Gnatholepis invaded the Atlantic during an interglacial period approximately 145,000 years ago (d = 0.0054), colonizing from the Indian Ocean to the western Atlantic, and subsequently to the central ( approximately 100,000 years ago) and eastern Atlantic ( approximately 30,000 years ago). Census data show a contemporary range expansion in the northeastern Atlantic linked to global warming.
Rocha
Luiz A
LA
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Unit 0948, APO, AA 34002-0948, USA. rochal@naos.si.edu
Robertson
D Ross
DR
Rocha
Claudia R
CR
Van Tassell
James L
JL
Craig
Matthew T
MT
Bowen
Brian W
BW
D000818:Animals; D001267:Atlantic Ocean; D001483:Base Sequence; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D045303:Cytochromes b / Q000235:genetics; D017931:DNA Primers; D003710:Demography; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005843:Geography; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010473:Perciformes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D011157:Population Dynamics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D017931:DNA Primers; D045303:Cytochromes b