Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45817
Title: DNA taxonomy confirms the identity of the widely-disjunct Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the Tufted Ghost Crab Ocypode cursor (Crustacea : Decapoda : Ocypodidae)
Authors: Vecchioni, Luca
Marrone, Federico
Deidun, Alan
Adepo-Gourene, Béatrice
Froglia, Carlo
Sciberras, Arnold
Bariche, Michel
Çiçek, Burak Ali
Foka-Corsini, Maria
Arculeo, Marco
Keywords: Atlantic ghost crab -- Mediterranean Region
Atlantic ghost crab -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Biodiversity -- Mediterranean Region
Biodiversity -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Introduced organisms -- Mediterranean Region
Introduced organisms -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Crustacea -- Mediterranean Region
Crustacea -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Decapoda (Crustacea) -- Mediterranean Region
Decapoda (Crustacea) -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Ocypodidae -- Mediterranean Region
Ocypodidae -- Atlantic Ocean Region
Issue Date: 2019
Publisher: Nihon Dobutsu Gakkai,Zoological Society of Japan
Citation: Vecchioni, L., Marrone, F., Deidun, A., Adepo-Gourene, B., Froglia, C., Sciberras, A., ... & Arculeo, M. (2019). DNA taxonomy confirms the identity of the widely-disjunct Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the Tufted Ghost Crab Ocypode cursor (Crustacea : Decapoda : Ocypodidae). Zoological Science, 36(4), 322-329.
Abstract: The distribution area of the tufted ghost crab Ocypode cursor includes two widely separate sub-areas, i.e. the tropical and subtropical Atlantic coasts of Africa and Macaronesia, and the central-eastern Mediterranean basin. The current disjunct distribution of the species is possibly the remnant of a previous wider and continuous distribution area that was fragmented during the Pleistocene, with the disappearance of the species from the temperate Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean basin, and its survival in the warmer areas of the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Such disjunction is thus compatible with an ancient isolation between the Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the species, which could in fact constitute two well-characterized independent evolutionary lineages, or even two cryptic species. Unexpectedly, the sequencing of a fragment of the mtDNA COI gene from Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocypode cursor allopatric populations showed the cohesion of the species throughout its distribution range, and the nesting of Mediterranean populations within the single Atlantic population studied. This pattern is hereby tentatively ascribed to an incomplete lineage sorting due to the large population sizes of both the Atlantic and Mediterranean subpopulations of the species. The current westward expansion of the species in the Mediterranean Sea originating from the Levantine basin, due to ongoing regional sea warming, follows a typical phalanx dispersal mode.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45817
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