Comparing molecular variation to morphological species designations in the deep-sea coral Narella reveals new insights into seamount coral ranges.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have countered the paradigm of seamount isolation, confounding conservation efforts at a critical time. Efforts to study deep-sea corals, one of the dominant taxa on seamounts, to understand seamount connectivity, are hampered by a lack of taxonomic keys. A prerequisite for connectivity is species overlap. Attempts to better understand species overlap using DNA barcoding methods suggest coral species are widely distributed on seamounts and nearby features. However, no baseline has been established for variation in these genetic markers relative to morphological species designations for deep-sea octocoral families. Here we assess levels of genetic variation in potential octocoral mitochondrial barcode markers relative to thoroughly examined morphological species in the genus

SUBMITTER: Baco AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3459954 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature