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Sibling species or poecilogony in the polychaete Scoloplos armiger?

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Abstract

In marine invertebrates multiple modes of development, or poecilogony, may occur in a single species. However, after close examination, many of such putative cases turned out to be sibling species. A case in point may be the cosmopolitan orbiniid polychaete Scoloplos armiger, which inhabits marine shallow sediments. In addition to the well-known direct, holobenthic development from egg cocoons, pelagic larvae have also been described. Our culture experiments revealed a spatially segregated source of the two developmental modes. All females of an intertidal population produced egg cocoons and no pelagic larvae. All but 2 out of 15 females of an adjacent subtidal population produced pelagic larvae and no egg cocoons. Based on these results we performed a molecular genetic analysis (RAPD-PCR) on three intertidal and four subtidal populations in the North Sea. Selected samples from all sites were analysed also by the AFLP method. We found significantly higher genetic diversity within subtidal than within intertidal populations. This is consistent with a wider dispersal by pelagic larvae and a smaller effective population size when development is holobenthic. Total genetic divergence is not related to distance but to the intertidal/subtidal division. We suggest that S. armiger actually represents two sibling species.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank K. Reise for his overall support during the study. The crew of the "Mya", N. Kruse and P. Elvert, were strongly involved in sampling the subtidal habitat and N. Volkenborn, T. Löbl and K. Heise helped untiringly in sampling both the intertidal and subtidal habitat. This study was financially supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant 03F0179A and by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Wattenmeerstation Sylt, 25992, List, Germany

    I. Kruse

  2. Max Planck Institute for Limnology, Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Postfach 165, 24306, Plön, Germany

    T. B. H. Reusch

  3. Section Animal Ecology, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden, P.O. Box 9516, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    M. V. Schneider

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  1. I. Kruse
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Correspondence to I. Kruse.

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Communicated by O. Kinne, Oldendorf/Luhe

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Kruse, I., Reusch, T.B.H. & Schneider, M.V. Sibling species or poecilogony in the polychaete Scoloplos armiger?. Marine Biology 142, 937–947 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-002-1007-2

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