Population genetics of Muraena helena
The moray eel Muraena helena is a reef-associated solitaire fish which belongs to the family of Muranidae. It is distributed across the eastern Atlantic Ocean southwards to Senegal within Macronesian Islands and the Mediterranean Sea. We are eager to find gene flow patterns between moray eel populations in the Mediterranean sea an the Atlantic ocean.
In contrast to terrestrial and freshwater environments geographical and hydrological barriers in marine settings are difficult to determine what makes the processes of genetic diversity difficult to understand. Further assertions for the difficulty of understanding can be also the large population sizes and the high potential for dispersal. The Atlantic Ocean which is divided in several provinces by geographic endemism contains biogeographical and physical barriers. The Strait of Gibraltar is known to be an important biogeographical and physical barrier which divides the Northern-Eastern-Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Several studies revealed that organisms with larval dispersal show decreased gene flow among these two regions. However, there is still a lack of analyses of the genetic structure of marine species with an Atlantic- Mediterranean distribution. The hypotheses for the observed patterns of genetic differentiation are isolation by distance with limited gene flow and secondary contact of previously divergent and isolated populations.
Our survey examines the barriers of gene flow for the reef-associated moray eel Muraena helena. The moray eel occurs from the Northern Atlantic southwards to Cape Verde Islands and also in the MS. In a previous study, D-loop sequences were used and Fst values indicated a high gene flow between populations of the Atlantic and the MS. In the present study, add cytochrome b (Cytb) sequences to the previous results to have a closer look at the phylogeography of that species.
