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The possible origin of Zostera noltii in the Canary Islands and guidelines for restoration

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Abstract

Seagrasses and their habitat are declining worldwide. Zostera noltii in the Canary Islands has been drastically reduced, mainly by anthropogenic disturbance, to three small surviving patches in a single harbor in Lanzarote. A previous genetic study, using neutral microsatellite markers, revealed that these patches consist of a single clonal individual. Here, an assignment test, using microsatellite data, was used to locate the most likely population of origin from a set of possible donor populations. Our results show that the Moulay Bousselham population in northern Morocco is assigned as the most likely population of origin (88%), although the probability of being at one generation time distance is low (2.7%). This result, however, allows locating the most closely related stands that may be the most successful donor populations for future restoration based on shoot or seed transplantation.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following people for providing us with Z. noltii samples from various locations: Filipe Alberto for the Moulay Bousselham and Puerto Real samples, Karim Erzini for the Dakhla samples, Alexandra Cunha for the Mauritania samples. We thank Sophie Arnaud-Haond and M. Hernández Ferrer (La Laguna University) for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. OED was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) postdoctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/9454/2002, co-funded by European Social Fund) and research project POCI/MAR/60044/2004 financed by FCT and FEDER. Funding was also provided by the European Commission through the NEST Complexity project EDEN (043251) and Lanzarote Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Ciências do Mar, CIMAR, FCT, Universidade do Algarve, Gambelas, 8005-139, Faro, Portugal

    O. E. Diekmann, L. Gouveia & E. A. Serrão

  2. Ecología y Genética, Facultad de Biologia, Dpto. Parasitología, Universidad de La Laguna, 38071, La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

    J. A. Perez

  3. Facultad de Farmacia, Departamento de Biología Vegetal (Botánica), Universidad de La Laguna, 38071, La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

    C. Gil-Rodriguez

Authors
  1. O. E. Diekmann
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  2. L. Gouveia
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  3. J. A. Perez
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  4. C. Gil-Rodriguez
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  5. E. A. Serrão
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to O. E. Diekmann.

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Communicated by T. Reusch.

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Diekmann, O.E., Gouveia, L., Perez, J.A. et al. The possible origin of Zostera noltii in the Canary Islands and guidelines for restoration. Mar Biol 157, 2109–2115 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1467-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1467-8

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