title: Endemic and widespread coral reef fishes have similar mitochondrial genetic diversity.
abstract: Endemic species are frequently assumed to have lower genetic diversity than species with large distributions, even if closely related. This assumption is based on research from the terrestrial environment and theoretical evolutionary modelling. We test this assumption in the marine environment by analysing the mitochondrial genetic diversity of 33 coral reef fish species from five families sampled from Pacific Ocean archipelagos. Surprisingly, haplotype and nucleotide diversity did not differ significantly between endemic and widespread species. The probable explanation is that the effective population size of some widespread fishes locally is similar to that of many of the endemics. Connectivity across parts of the distribution of the widespread species is probably low, so widespread species can operate like endemics at the extreme or isolated parts of their range. Mitochondrial genetic diversity of many endemic reef fish species may not either limit range size or be a source of vulnerability.
authors.affiliation: CRIOBE-USR 3278, CNRS-EPHE-UPVD, 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France Laboratoire d'Excellence 'CORAIL', 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France erwan.delrieu.trottin@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Erwan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4120-9316
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Delrieu-Trottin
authors.affiliation: CRIOBE-USR 3278, CNRS-EPHE-UPVD, 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France Laboratoire d'Excellence 'CORAIL', 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6444-6373
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maynard
authors.affiliation: CRIOBE-USR 3278, CNRS-EPHE-UPVD, 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France Laboratoire d'Excellence 'CORAIL', 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan cedex, France.
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Planes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D057894:Coral Reefs; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics*; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D006239:Haplotypes; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D058974:Phylogeography; D011156:Population Density
keywords: coral reef fish; endemism; mitochondrial genetic diversity; range size; vulnerability