title: Ecological and genetic impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami on intertidal mud snails.
abstract: Natural disturbances often destroy local populations and can considerably affect the genetic properties of these populations. The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami greatly damaged local populations of various coastal organisms, including the mud snail Batillaria attramentaria, which was an abundant macroinvertebrate on the tidal flats in the Tohoku region. To evaluate the impact of the tsunami on the ecology and population genetic properties of these snails, we monitored the density, shell size, and microsatellite DNA variation of B. attramentaria for more than ten years (2005-2015) throughout the disturbance event. We found that the density of snails declined immediately after the tsunami. Bayesian inference of the genetically effective population size (Ne) demonstrated that the Nedeclined by 60-99% at the study sites exposed to the tsunami. However, we found that their genetic diversity was not significantly reduced after the tsunami. The maintenance of genetic diversity is essential for long-term survival of local populations, and thus, the observed genetic robustness could play a key role in the persistence of snail populations in this region which has been devastated by similar tsunamis every 500-800 years. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the sustainability of populations damaged by natural disturbances.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Agriculture and Marine Science, Kochi University, 200 Monobe, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Osamu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan.
authors.forename: Gen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kanaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Science and Resources, College of Bioresource Sciences Nihon University, 1866 Kameino, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-0880, Japan.
authors.forename: Shizuko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakai
authors.affiliation: Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8564, Japan.
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Itoh
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Life Sciences, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-0862, Japan.
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chiba
authors.affiliation: Division of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8578, Japan.
authors.forename: Wataru
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Makino
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Aquatic Environmental Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Kochi University, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishimura
authors.affiliation: Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8564, Japan.
authors.forename: Shigeaki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.affiliation: Division of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8578, Japan.
authors.forename: Jotaro
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Urabe
mesh_terms: D060105:Animal Shells / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D049628:Body Size; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics*; D004190:Disasters; D055866:Earthquakes; D017753:Ecosystem; D014644:Genetic Variation; D007564:Japan; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D011156:Population Density; D012908:Snails / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000235:genetics*; D057192:Tsunamis
chemical_list: D004247:DNA