Strong Population Structure and Differentiation within and among Burrowing Bog Crayfish Species of Southern Alabama Wetl

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WETLANDS CONSERVATION

Strong Population Structure and Differentiation within and among Burrowing Bog Crayfish Species of Southern Alabama Wetlands Mallary Clay 1,2

&

Pamela M. Brannock 3 & Michael Barbour 4 & Jack W. Feminella 1 & Scott R. Santos 1 & Brian S. Helms 5

Received: 13 August 2019 / Accepted: 30 January 2020 # Society of Wetland Scientists 2020

Abstract Despite their high diversity and degree of endemism in the southeastern US, little is known about population genetic structure of most crayfishes. This is because of their cryptic morphology and elusive behavior, particularly burrowing species. We compared population genetic structure of 2 burrowing crayfish species (Creaserinus burrisi and C. byersi) from bogs in Washington, Baldwin, and Mobile counties in southern Alabama, USA. Through hand excavation of burrows, we collected individuals from 7 drainage systems, with C. byersi in the southern extent and C. burrisi in the northern extent of the study area. Based on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences, tests of pairwise genetic structure approached the upper limit of 1.0, showed that haplotype sharing between and within drainages was nearly non-existent. Large differentiation between and low genetic diversity both between and within drainage systems occurred for both species. Genetic structuring corresponded to subtle hydrologic features such as fine-scale drainage patterns and human development (road crossings). Our data suggest that these species have recently diverged with extremely low vagility and rare dispersal events, resulting in isolated populations. Such population uniqueness from a genetic perspective pose considerable challenges to range-wide management of these and other similar species. Keywords Population genetics . Creaserinus . Phylogeography . Pitcher plant bog

Introduction Determining the degree of connectivity among populations is critical to conservation and management of many imperiled and/or endemic species, particularly those prone to genetic bottlenecks from having restricted ranges (Hughes 2007). Population connectivity is dependent on species dispersal ability and spatial arrangement of individuals within and between populations (Webster et al. 2002; Crooks and Sanjayan * Mallary Clay [email protected] 1

Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

2

Christ School, 500 Christ School Rd, Arden, NC, USA

3

Department of Biology, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA

4

Arizona Game and Fish Department, Phoenix, AZ, USA

5

Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Troy University, Troy, AL, USA

2006; Hughes et al. 2009). A high level of genetic structuring often occurs for species with limited dispersal abilities, with the highest genetic diversity occurring among, rather than within, populations (Hughes et al. 2009; Helms et al. 2015). In addition, immigration into small, isolated populations becomes more unlikely as distance between populations increases (Maruyama and Fuerst 1985; Whelan et al. 2019). A