C onnectivity o f the coral A cro p o ra tenuis in the Spermonde
Archipelago
Demierbe Thibaud, Rosa Maria van der Ven, Puspitaningasih S utrisnoand Mare Kochzius
D epartm ent o f Marine Biology
Vrije U niversiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
E-mail: tdem ierb@ vub.ac.be
Coral reefs are the marine ecosystem w ith the highest bio dive rsity o f marine species. Herm atypic
corals are im p o rta n t ecosystem engineers, providing the three-dim ensional structure o f the habitat.
The d istrib u tio n o f coral reefs is patchy at local scale (among islands) and large scale (across
oceans). Since the adults o f coral reef taxa are sedentary, co nn ectivity among populations is only
possible by dispersal o f planktonic early life h istory stages. Due to anthropogenic im pacts coral
reefs are declining on a global scale and marine protected areas (MPAs) are an im p o rta n t to o l fo r
th e ir conservation. However, due to the patchy nature o f the habitat MPAs should be arranged in
netw orks th a t ensure connectivity among them . This w ill safeguard resilience o f these
m etapopulations by providing new recruits fo r re-colonisation o f disturbed areas.
Insight in the ecology and population dynamics can be used to develop m anagem ent and
restoration strategies. This study w ill investigate connectivity o f the broadcasting herm atypic coral
A cro po ra tenuis on tw o d iffe re n t spatial scales. C onnectivity on a local scale w ill be investigated in
Spermonde Archipelago (Indonesia) w ith a m axim um distance among populations o f about 80km . A
large scale analysis across the Indian Ocean w ill be conducted between populations fro m Indonesia
and populations fro m East Africa. The genetic population structure w ill be investigated by utilising
m icrosatellites. Analysis is based on length polym orphism in Single Sequence Repeats (SSR) o f n on ­
coding DNA regions th a t show a high m utation rate. Sixteen m icrosatellite markers were selected
from literature and are tested fo r polym orphism . The selected m arkers w ill be used in a m u ltip le x
PCR and the length o f the am plicons w ill be measured by capillary electrophoresis. DNA frag m en t
length data w ill be scored w ith the software Genemarker and analysed w ith the program m es
Genealex, FSTAT and STRUCTURE (cluster analysis). The statistical analysis o f the length data w ill
allow us to measure gene flo w and to estim ate connectivity.
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