Highly structured populations of copepods at risk to deep-sea mining: Integration of genomic data with demogenetic and biophysical modelling.

Copepoda is the most abundant taxon in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where hard substrate is available. Despite the increasing interest in seafloor massive sulphides exploitation, there have been no population genomic studies conducted on vent meiofauna, which are known to contribute over 50% to metazoan biodiversity at vents. To bridge this knowledge gap, restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing, specifically 2b-RADseq, was used to retrieve thousands of genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from abundant populations of the vent-obligate copepod Stygiopontius lauensis from the Lau Basin.

Contrasted phylogeographic patterns of hydrothermal vent gastropods along South West Pacific: Woodlark Basin, a possible contact zone and/or stepping-stone.

Understanding drivers of biodiversity patterns is essential to evaluate the potential impact of deep-sea mining on ecosystems resilience. While the South West Pacific forms an independent biogeographic province for hydrothermal vent fauna, different degrees of connectivity among basins were previously reported for a variety of species depending on their ability to disperse. In this study, we compared phylogeographic patterns of several vent gastropods across South West Pacific back-arc basins and the newly-discovered La Scala site on the Woodlark Ridge by analysing their genetic divergence using a barcoding approach.

Inter-Specific Genetic Exchange Despite Strong Divergence in Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Gastropods of the Genus .

Deep hydrothermal vents are highly fragmented and unstable habitats at all temporal and spatial scales. Such environmental dynamics likely play a non-negligible role in speciation. Little is, however, known about the evolutionary processes that drive population-level differentiation and vent species isolation and, more specifically, how geography and habitat specialisation interplay in the species history of divergence.

Subtle limits to connectivity revealed by outlier loci within two divergent metapopulations of the deep-sea hydrothermal gastropod Ifremeria nautilei.

Hydrothermal vents form archipelagos of ephemeral deep-sea habitats that raise interesting questions about the evolution and dynamics of the associated endemic fauna, constantly subject to extinction-recolonization processes. These metal-rich environments are coveted for the mineral resources they harbour, thus raising recent conservation concerns. The evolutionary fate and demographic resilience of hydrothermal species strongly depend on the degree of connectivity among and within their fragmented metapopulations.

One panel to rule them all: DArTcap genotyping for population structure, historical demography, and kinship analyses, and its application to a threatened shark.

With recent advances in sequencing technology, genomic data are changing how important conservation management decisions are made. Applications such as Close-Kin Mark-Recapture demand large amounts of data to estimate population size and structure, and their full potential can only be realised through ongoing improvements in genotyping strategies. Here we introduce DArTcap, a cost-efficient method that combines DArTseq and sequence capture, and illustrate its use in a high resolution population analysis of Glyphis garricki, a rare, poorly known and threatened euryhaline shark.