Living on the edge: Assessing the diversity of South African Pocillopora on the margins of the Southwestern Indian Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Scleractinia of the Maputaland reef complex (MRC) in South Africa exist at the margins of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) coral distribution and are the only substantial hermatypic coral communities in South Africa. Pocillopora species occupy a conspicuous component of the MRC, and previous investigations identified three species of Pocillopora utilizing conventional taxonomy. Thus, our aims were four-fold: to elucidate Pocillopora species diversity using genetic techniques, primarily using species delimitation methods based on the ORF gene; to test for the presence of hybridisation within the Pocillopora community on the South-West margin of distribution in the Indian Ocean using two nuclear and two mitochondrial markers; to test the presence of cryptic species, using 13 microsatellite mar

SUBMITTER: Chiazzari B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6677312 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature