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Low diversity and high levels of population genetic structuring in introduced eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) in the greater Melbourne area, Australia

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Abstract

Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) were introduced into Australia in 1925 and released to control mosquitoes. Gambusia holbrooki rapidly became invasive in recipient environments and now threaten native fauna. In this study, we used five polymorphic microsatellite loci and sequence from two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome b and cytochrome oxidase I, to evaluate genetic variation, colonisation and movement patterns of introduced G. holbrooki in the greater Melbourne area, and to assist in identifying the feasibility of local eradication. Microsatellite variation was consistently low within populations and there was evidence of bottleneck events for several populations. Populations displayed significant structuring associated with river basins rather than geographic distance, suggesting that habitat connectivity is important for dispersal. However, a few populations within river basins were more closely related to populations in other river basins than within their own basin, most likely reflecting a role of human-assisted dispersal in population establishment. Mitochondrial sequencing revealed only a single haplotype and suggested all populations were founded by individuals from a common source. These genetic data help delineate boundaries for local management strategies.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Steve Marshall, Trish Grant, and John McGuckin for providing some sample collections. We also thank Kathryn Guthridge, Paul Mitrovski and Andrew Weeks for guidance on project methods, Melissa Carew for comments on the draft manuscript and David Sharley for assistance generating Fig. 1. STRUCTURE analysis was carried out using the resources of the Computational Biology Service Unit from Cornell University which is partially funded by Microsoft Corporation. Two anonymous reviewers contributed considerably to the improvement of the manuscript. This work was funded by the Melbourne Water Corporation.

Appendix

See Tables 4, 5.

Table 4 Allele frequencies at five polymorphic microsatellite loci in Gambusia holbrooki populations. Populations (L as described in Table 1) are separated into river basins
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Table 5 Genetic differentiation estimated using Wright’s F ST statistic (lower diagonal) and the geographic distance (km) (upper diagonal) between population pairs of Gambusia holbrooki. Populations (L as described in Table 1) are separated into river basins
Full size table

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research and Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Bio21 Institute, 30 Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Renae M. Ayres

  2. Research and Technology, Melbourne Water Corporation, P.O. Box 4342, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

    Vincent J. Pettigrove

  3. Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research and Department of Zoology and Department of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Bio21 Institute, 30 Flemington Road, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Ary A. Hoffmann

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Ayres, R.M., Pettigrove, V.J. & Hoffmann, A.A. Low diversity and high levels of population genetic structuring in introduced eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) in the greater Melbourne area, Australia. Biol Invasions 12, 3727–3744 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-010-9766-z

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