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High and dry: intermittent watersheds provide a test case for genetic response of desert fishes to climate change

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Abstract

In desert streams, fishes and other organisms that depend on surface water are predicted to inhabit smaller and more isolated wetted reaches, while the frequency and severity of disturbance is expected to increase under most climate change models. Together, these factors should reduce population genetic diversity and persistence probabilities. In this study, our goal was to understand genetic responses of stream fish populations to disturbance in an intermittent stream network. This network is occupied by Rio Grande sucker (Pantosteus plebeius) that is native to highland desert streams in North America. Sample localities in upland perennial reaches were connected by moderate to high levels of gene flow even when separated by up to a 30-km intermittent reach. However, drier and lower-elevation reaches were significant barriers to gene flow. Effects of genetic drift (lower allelic diversity and higher levels of inbreeding) were more pronounced in the watershed with fewest wetted reaches. Temporal analysis of genetic diversity indicated that streams with several spatially distinct wetted reaches were more genetically resistant to wildfire-induced demographic bottlenecks than a stream with only one wetted reach. Maintenance of multiple wetted reaches within streams and facilitated gene flow among watersheds could slow losses of genetic diversity in upland desert stream fishes, and will be important strategies for conserving stream biodiversity in the face of habitat fragmentation and disturbance related to climate change.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Heather Johnson, Eric Leinonen, and Michael Konsmo for field assistance. Krista Leibensperger, Tyler Pilger, Hailey Conover, and George Rosenberg provided assistance in the laboratory. Genotyping was done in the UNM Molecular Biology Facility supported, in part, by NIH grant number P20GM103452. David Propst, Tyler Pilger, John Carlos Garza, and an anonymous reviewer made valuable comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. Field collections were made under New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Authorization for Taking Protected Wildlife For Scientific and Educational Purposes Permit # 3261 and UNM IACUC Protocol # 10-100492-MCC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    Thomas F. Turner & Megan J. Osborne

  2. School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Juneau, AK, 99801, USA

    Megan V. McPhee

  3. Turner Enterprises, Incorporated, 1123 Research Drive, Bozeman, MT, 59718, USA

    Carter G. Kruse

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  1. Thomas F. Turner
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  4. Carter G. Kruse
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Correspondence to Thomas F. Turner.

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Turner, T.F., Osborne, M.J., McPhee, M.V. et al. High and dry: intermittent watersheds provide a test case for genetic response of desert fishes to climate change. Conserv Genet 16, 399–410 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-014-0666-0

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