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Ancient female philopatry, asymmetric male gene flow, and synchronous population expansion support the influence of climatic oscillations on the evolution of South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens)

Oliveira, Larissa Rosa de; Gehara, Marcelo C.M.; Fraga, Lúcia D.; Lopes, Fernando; Túnez, Juan Ignacio; Cassini, Marcelo H.; Majluf, Patricia; Cárdenas-Alayza, Susana; Pavés, Héctor J.; Crespo, Enrique Alberto; García, Nestor; Loizaga de Castro, Rocío; Hoelzel, A. Rus; Sepúlveda, Maritza; Olavarría, Carlos; Valiati, Victor Hugo; Quiñones, Renato; Pérez-Alvarez, Maria Jose; Ott, Paulo Henrique; Bonatto, Sandro L.

Ancient female philopatry, asymmetric male gene flow, and synchronous population expansion support the influence of climatic oscillations on the evolution of South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) Thumbnail


Authors

Larissa Rosa de Oliveira

Marcelo C.M. Gehara

Lúcia D. Fraga

Fernando Lopes

Juan Ignacio Túnez

Marcelo H. Cassini

Patricia Majluf

Susana Cárdenas-Alayza

Héctor J. Pavés

Enrique Alberto Crespo

Nestor García

Rocío Loizaga de Castro

Maritza Sepúlveda

Carlos Olavarría

Victor Hugo Valiati

Renato Quiñones

Maria Jose Pérez-Alvarez

Paulo Henrique Ott

Sandro L. Bonatto



Abstract

The South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) is widely distributed along the southern Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America with a history of significant commercial exploitation. We aimed to evaluate the population genetic structure and the evolutionary history of South American sea lion along its distribution by analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and 10 nuclear microsatellites loci. We analyzed 147 sequences of mtDNA control region and genotyped 111 individuals of South American sea lion for 10 microsatellite loci, representing six populations (Peru, Northern Chile, Southern Chile, Uruguay (Brazil), Argentina and Falkland (Malvinas) Islands) and covering the entire distribution of the species. The mtDNA phylogeny shows that haplotypes from the two oceans comprise two very divergent clades as observed in previous studies, suggesting a long period (>1 million years) of low inter-oceanic female gene flow. Bayesian analysis of bi-parental genetic diversity supports significant (but less pronounced than mitochondrial) genetic structure between Pacific and Atlantic populations, although also suggested some inter-oceanic gene flow mediated by males. Higher male migration rates were found in the intra-oceanic population comparisons, supporting very high female philopatry in the species. Demographic analyses showed that populations from both oceans went through a large population expansion ~10,000 years ago, suggesting a very similar influence of historical environmental factors, such as the last glacial cycle, on both regions. Our results support the proposition that the Pacific and Atlantic populations of the South American sea lion should be considered distinct evolutionarily significant units, with at least two managements units in each ocean.

Citation

Oliveira, L. R. D., Gehara, M. C., Fraga, L. D., Lopes, F., Túnez, J. I., Cassini, M. H., …Bonatto, S. L. (2017). Ancient female philopatry, asymmetric male gene flow, and synchronous population expansion support the influence of climatic oscillations on the evolution of South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens). PLoS ONE, 12(6), Article e0179442. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179442

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 29, 2017
Online Publication Date Jun 27, 2017
Publication Date Jun 27, 2017
Deposit Date Jul 13, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal PLoS ONE
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 6
Article Number e0179442
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179442

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2017 Oliveira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.





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