title: Recent invasion of the tropical Atlantic by an Indo-Pacific coral reef fish.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Unit 0948, APO, AA 34002-0948, USA. rochal@naos.si.edu
authors.forename: Luiz A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rocha
authors.forename: D Ross
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: Claudia R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Rocha
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Van Tassell
authors.forename: Matthew T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.forename: Brian W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Bowen
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D045303:Cytochromes b