Lophelia pertusa corals from the Ionian and Barents seas share identical nuclear ITS2 and near-identical mitochondrial genome sequences.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Lophelia pertusa is a keystone cold-water coral species with a widespread distribution. Due to the lack of a mitochondrial marker variable enough for intraspecific analyses, the population structure of this species has only been studied using ITS and microsatellites so far. We therefore decided to sequence and compare complete mitochondrial genomes from two distant L. pertusa populations putatively isolated from each other (in the Barents Sea off Norway and in the Mediterranean Sea off Italy) in the hope of finding regions variable enough for population genetic and phylogeographic studies.

Results

The mitogenomes of two L. pertusa individuals collected in the Mediterranean and Barents seas differed at only one position, which was a non-synonymous substitution, but

SUBMITTER: Flot JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3637110 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature