Publication Date:
2010-06-19
Description:
Conservation priorities are calculated on the basis of species richness, endemism, and threats. However, areas ranked highly for these factors may not represent regions of maximal evolutionary potential. The relationship between geography and evolutionary innovation was analyzed in a dominant complex of Caribbean reef corals, in which morphological and genetic data concur on species differences. Based on geometric morphometrics of Pleistocene corals and genetically characterized modern colonies, we found that morphological disparity varies from the center to the edge of the Caribbean, and we show that lineages are static at well-connected central locations but split or fuse in edge zones where gene flow is limited. Thus, conservation efforts in corals should focus not only on the centers of diversity but also on peripheral areas of species ranges and population connectivity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Budd, Ann F -- Pandolfi, John M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Jun 18;328(5985):1558-61. doi: 10.1126/science.1188947.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. ann-budd@uiowa.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20558718" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Adaptation, Biological
;
Animals
;
Anthozoa/*anatomy & histology/classification/*genetics
;
Barbados
;
*Biodiversity
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Caribbean Region
;
Extinction, Biological
;
*Fossils
;
Gene Flow
;
Genetic Speciation
;
Geography
;
Hybridization, Genetic
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
