Submerged Corridors of Ancient Gene Flow in an Island Amphibian.

ABSTRACT: Many island archipelagos sit on shallow continental shelves, and during the Pleistocene, these islands were often connected as global sea levels dropped following glaciation. Given a continental shelf only 30-60 m below sea level, the terrestrial biota of the Seychelles Archipelago likely dispersed amongst now isolated islands during the Pleistocene. Hypogeophis rostratus is an egg-laying, direct-developing caecilian amphibian found on 10 islands in the granitic Seychelles. Despite the seemingly limited dispersal abilities of this salt-intolerant amphibian, its distribution on multiple islands suggests likely historic dispersal across now submerged continental shelf corridors. We tested for the genetic signature of these historic corridors using fine-scale genomic data (ddRADseq). We found

SUBMITTER: Sherlock MB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12010468 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature