How old are you? Genet age estimates in a clonal animal.
Foundation species such as redwoods, seagrasses and corals are often long-lived and clonal. Genets may consist of hundreds of members (ramets) and originated hundreds to thousands of years ago. As climate change and other stressors exert selection pressure on species, the demography of populations changes. Yet, because size does not indicate age in clonal organisms, demographic models are missing data necessary to predict the resilience of many foundation species. Here, we correlate somatic mutations with genet age of corals and provide the first, preliminary estimates of genet age in a colonial animal. We observed somatic mutations at five microsatellite loci in rangewide samples of the endangered coral, Acropora palmata (n = 3352). Colonies harboured 342 unique mutations in 147 genets. Genet age ranged from 30 to 838 years assuming a mutation rate of 1.195-04per locus per year based on colony growth rates and 236 to 6500 years assuming a mutation rate of 1.542-05per locus per year based on sea level changes to habitat availability. Long-lived A. palmata genets imply a large capacity to tolerate past environmental change, and yet recent mass mortality events in A. palmata suggest that capacity is now being frequently exceeded.
Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, 208 Mueller Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
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MK
Devlin-Durante
Southeast Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, 75 Virginia Beach Dr., Miami, FL, 33149, USA.
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Miller
Marine & Coastal Programs, Dial Cordy & Associates, 90 Osceola Ave, Jacksonville Beach, FL, 32250, USA.
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Precht
Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, 208 Mueller Lab, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
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http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6463-7308
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Baums
D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000235:genetics*; D017691:Caribbean Region; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D017753:Ecosystem; D005431:Florida; D005828:Genetics, Population; D008136:Longevity; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats
clonal; longevity; microsatellite; population dynamics; somatic mutations