Environment not dispersal limitation drives clonal composition of Arctic Daphnia in a recently deglaciated area.
One of the most prominent manifestations of the ongoing climate warming is the retreat of glaciers and ice sheets around the world. Retreating glaciers result in the formation of new ponds and lakes, which are available for colonization. The gradual appearance of these new habitat patches allows us to determine to what extent the composition of asexual Daphnia (water flea) populations is affected by environmental drivers vs. dispersal limitation. Here, we used a landscape genetics approach to assess the processes structuring the clonal composition of species in the D. pulex species complex that have colonized periglacial habitats created by ice-sheet retreat in western Greenland. We analysed 61 populations from a young (<50 years) and an old cluster (>150 years) of lakes and ponds. We identified 42 asexual clones that varied widely in spatial distribution. Beta-diversity was higher among older than among younger systems. Lineage sorting by the environment explained 14% of the variation in clonal composition whereas the pure effect of geographical distance was very small and statistically insignificant (Radj2 = 0.010, P = 0.085). Dispersal limitation did not seem important, even among young habitat patches. The observation of several tens of clones colonizing the area combined with environmentally driven clonal composition of populations illustrates that population assembly of asexual species in the Arctic is structured by environmental gradients reflecting differences in the ecology of clones.
Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, KU Leuven, Ch. Deberiotstraat 32, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium.|Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Sciences (CNCS), Mekelle University, P.O.Box: 231, Mekelle, Ethiopia.
Tsegazeabe H
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-620X
TH
Haileselasie
Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, KU Leuven, Ch. Deberiotstraat 32, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium.|Research Institute for Nature and Forest, Gaverstraat 4, Geraardsbergen, 9500, Belgium.
Joachim
J
Mergeay
Department of Biology, Program in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73071, USA.
Lawrence J
LJ
Weider
Lake and Glacier Research Group, Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, Innsbruck, Austria.
Ruben
R
Sommaruga
Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, Silkeborg, 8600, Denmark.
Thomas A
TA
Davidson
Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, Silkeborg, 8600, Denmark.|Department of Ecology and Environmental Management, CURE-Faculty of Sciences, University of the Republic (Uruguay), Maldonado, 20000, Uruguay.
Mariana
M
Meerhoff
Cologne Biocenter, Institute for Zoology, General Ecology, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Str. 47b, D-50674, Köln, Germany.
Hartmut
H
Arndt
Biological Oceanography Department, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research, Seestrasse 15, D-18119, Rostock, Germany.
Klaus
K
Jürgens
Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, Silkeborg, 8600, Denmark.|Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research (SDC), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 3 Zhongguancun South 1st Alley, Haidian District, 100190, Beijing, China.
Erik
E
Jeppesen
Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, KU Leuven, Ch. Deberiotstraat 32, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium.
Luc
L
De Meester
D063147:Animal Distribution; D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D003621:Daphnia / Q000235:genetics*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006116:Greenland; D046448:Ice Cover
climate change; colonization; founder effect; isolation-by-colonization; isolation-by-dispersal limitation; landscape genetics
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