Journal article
The return of the frogs: The importance of habitat refugia in maintaining diversity during a disease outbreak
Molecular Ecology, Vol.28(11), pp.2731-2745
2019
Abstract
Recent decades have seen the emergence and spread of numerous infectious diseases, often with severe negative consequences for wildlife populations. Nevertheless, many populations survive the initial outbreaks, and even undergo recoveries. Unfortunately, the long-term effects of these outbreaks on host population genetics are poorly understood; to increase this understanding, we examined the population genetics of two species of rainforest frogs (Litoria nannotis and Litoria serrata) that have largely recovered from a chytridiomycosis outbreak at two national parks in the Wet Tropics of northern Australia. At the wetter, northern park there was little evidence of decreased genetic diversity in either species, and all of the sampled sites had high minor allele frequencies (mean MAF = 0.230-0.235), high heterozygosity (0.318-0.325), and few monomorphic markers (1.4-4.0%); however, some recovered L. nannotis populations had low Ne values (59.3-683.8) compared to populations that did not decline during the outbreak (1537.4-1756.5). At the drier, southern park, both species exhibited lower diversity (mean MAF = 0.084-0.180; heterozygosity = 0.126-0.257; monomorphic markers = 3.7-43.5%; Ne = 18.4-676.1). The diversity patterns in this park matched habitat patterns, with both species having higher diversity levels and fewer closely related individuals at sites with higher quality habitat. These patterns were more pronounced for L. nannotis, which has lower dispersal rates than L. serrata. These results suggest that refugia with high quality habitat are important for retaining genetic diversity during disease outbreaks, and that gene flow following disease outbreaks is important for restabilising diversity in populations where it was reduced.
Details
- Title
- The return of the frogs: The importance of habitat refugia in maintaining diversity during a disease outbreak
- Authors
- Donald T McKnight (Corresponding Author) - James Cook UniversityMonal M Lal (Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastDeborah S Bower (Author) - James Cook UniversityLin Schwarzkopf (Author) - James Cook UniversityRoss A Alford (Author) - James Cook UniversityKyall R Zenger (Author) - James Cook University
- Publication details
- Molecular Ecology, Vol.28(11), pp.2731-2745
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Date published
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.1111/mec.15108
- ISSN
- 0962-1083
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2019 Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. This is the accepted version of the following article: McKnight, DT, Lal, MM, Bower, DS, Schwarzkopf, L, Alford, RA, Zenger, KR. The return of the frogs: The importance of habitat refugia in maintaining diversity during a disease outbreak. Mol Ecol. 2019; 28: 2731-2745. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15108, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15108
- Organisation Unit
- Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99451218102621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
18 File views/ downloads
200 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology