title: Are there species smaller than 1 mm?
abstract: The rapid advance in genetic sequencing technologies has provided an unprecedented amount of data on the biodiversity of meiofauna. It was hoped that these data would allow the identification and counting of species, distinguished as tight clusters of similar genomes. Surprisingly, this appears not to be the case. Here, we begin a theoretical discussion of this phenomenon, drawing on an individual-based ecological model to inform our arguments. The determining factor in the emergence (or not) of distinguishable genetic clusters in the model is the product of population size with mutation rate-a measure of the adaptability of the population as a whole. This result suggests that indeed one should not expect to observe clearly distinguishable species groupings in data gathered from ultrasequencing of meiofauna.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft NR33 0HT, UK. axel@rossberg.net
authors.forename: Axel G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Rossberg
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Alan J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: McKane
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D049628:Body Size; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation; D010802:Phylogeny; D012098:Reproduction
keywords: adaptive dynamics; competition; ecological species concept; individual-based models; lineages-through-time plots