A species flock driven by predation? Secondary metabolites support diversification of slugs in antarctica.

ABSTRACT: Antarctica's rich marine animal biodiversity has been substantially influenced by a complex glacial history, but it is unclear why some taxa responded with diversification while others did not. Despite being considered a single endemic sea slug species in the Southern Ocean, mitochondrial DNA sequencing of Doris kerguelenensis (Bergh, 1884) revealed a multitude of highly divergent lineages. But because of the uniparental inheritance of mitochondria, it was unclear whether those lineages represented a radiation of cryptic species or simply stochastic sorting patterns of populations that rarely reach equilibrium. Here we demonstrate that the mitochondrial groups in D. kerguelenensis also correlate with nuclear DNA. Additionally, by extracting secondary metabolites from the same individuals w

SUBMITTER: Wilson NG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3841181 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature