Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov;31(21):5506-5523.
doi: 10.1111/mec.16672. Epub 2022 Sep 14.

Pre-domestication bottlenecks of the cultivated seaweed Gracilaria chilensis

Oscar R Huanel  1   2 , Suany Quesada-Calderón  3   4 , Cristian Ríos Molina  3 , Sarai Morales-González  3 , Pablo Saenz-Agudelo  2   3   5 , Wendy A Nelson  6   7 , Natalia Arakaki  8 , Stéphane Mauger  2 , Sylvain Faugeron  1   2 , Marie-Laure Guillemin  2   9
Affiliations

Pre-domestication bottlenecks of the cultivated seaweed Gracilaria chilensis

Oscar R Huanel et al. Mol Ecol. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Gracilaria chilensis is the main cultivated seaweed in Chile. The low genetic diversity observed in the Chilean populations has been associated with the over-exploitation of natural beds and/or the founder effect that occurred during post-glacial colonization from New Zealand. How these processes have affected its evolutionary trajectory before farming and incipient domestication is poorly understood. In this study, we used 2232 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess how the species' evolutionary history in New Zealand (its region of origin), the founder effect linked to transoceanic dispersion and colonization of South America, and the recent over-exploitation of natural populations have influenced the genetic architecture of G. chilensis in Chile. The contrasting patterns of genetic diversity and structure observed between the two main islands in New Zealand attest to the important effects of Quaternary glacial cycles on G. chilensis. Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) analyses indicated that Chatham Island and South America were colonized independently near the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and emphasized the importance of coastal and oceanic currents during that period. Furthermore, ABC analyses inferred the existence of a recent and strong genetic bottleneck in Chile, matching the period of over-exploitation of the natural beds during the 1970s, followed by rapid demographic expansion linked to active clonal propagation used in farming. Recurrent genetic bottlenecks strongly eroded the genetic diversity of G. chilensis prior to its cultivation, raising important challenges for the management of genetic resources in this incipiently domesticated species.

Keywords: Rhodophyceae; SNPs; domestication; genetic bottleneck; genetic resource; phylogeography.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Alloway, B. V., Lowe, D. J., Barrell, D. J., Newnham, R. M., Almond, P. C., Augustinus, P. C., Bertler, N. A. N., Carter, L., Litchfield, N. J., Mcglone, M. S., Shulmeister, J., Vandergoes, M. J., Williams, P. W., & NZ-INTIMATE members. (2007). Towards a climate event stratigraphy for New Zealand over the past 30 000 years (NZ-INTIMATE project). Journal of Quaternary Science, 22(1), 9-35.
    1. Apte, S., & Gardner, J. P. A. (2002). Population genetic subdivision in the New Zealand greenshell mussel (Perna canaliculus) inferred from single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis of mitochondrial DNA. Molecular Ecology, 11(9), 1617-1628.
    1. Avila, M., & Seguel, M. (1993). An overview of seaweed resources in Chile. Journal of Applied Phycology, 5(2), 133-139.
    1. Ayers, K. L., & Waters, J. M. (2005). Marine biogeographic disjunction in Central New Zealand. Marine Biology, 147(4), 1045-1052.
    1. Barnes, E. J. (1985). Eastern Cook Strait region circulation inferred from satellite-derived, sea-surface, temperature data. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 19(3), 405-411.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources