Genetic differentiation within and between populations of a hermaphroditic freshwater planarian

Dispersal of individuals is an important factor that can influence genetic differentiation between populations. The hermaphroditic freshwater planarian Schmidtea polychroa inhabits shallow regions of lakes and streams, in which they appear to be continuously distributed. In the present study we used...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heredity 2002-07, Vol.89 (1), p.64-69
Main Authors: Pongratz, N, Gerace, L, Michiels, N K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Cytogenetics
Disorders of Sex Development
Dispersal
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Gene flow
Genetic structure
Genetic Variation
Human Genetics
Lakes
Microsatellite Repeats
original-article
Planarians - enzymology
Planarians - genetics
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Streams
Subpopulations
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Summary:Dispersal of individuals is an important factor that can influence genetic differentiation between populations. The hermaphroditic freshwater planarian Schmidtea polychroa inhabits shallow regions of lakes and streams, in which they appear to be continuously distributed. In the present study we used three highly polymorphic markers for analysing small-scale and large-scale genetic structure within one, and between four natural lake populations. Genetic differentiation could already be observed between samples collected at least 13 m apart, but not between neighbouring samples, and was most pronounced between samples from different lakes. Probably due to the high variance in F ST values, a significant correlation between genetic differentiation and geographic distance could not be observed. These results show that individual dispersal of S. polychroa is limited, but that there is gene flow between subpopulations from the same lake. They further suggest that long-distance dispersal and gene flow between lakes, if present, is not a common process in S. polychroa .
ISSN:0018-067X
1365-2540
DOI:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800102