Publications by authors named "L Benestan"

Article Synopsis
  • Connectivity is essential for understanding population dynamics in marine ecosystems, and recent methods have improved our ability to study it, especially along the complex Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP).
  • The study focused on the notothenioid fish Harpagifer antarcticus, using biophysical modeling and population genomics to reveal congruent patterns of connectivity and genetic groups defined by limited gene flow due to local oceanographic barriers.
  • Findings indicate that both geographic distance and ocean currents significantly influence the population structure of H. antarcticus, leading to discussions on connectivity estimations and conservation priorities for the marine protected area in this vulnerable region of the Southern Ocean.
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Climate influences population genetic variation in marine species. Capturing these impacts remains challenging for marine fishes which disperse over large geographical scales spanning steep environmental gradients. It requires the extensive spatial sampling of individuals or populations, representative of seascape heterogeneity, combined with a set of highly informative molecular markers capable of revealing climatic-associated genetic variations.

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How far do marine larvae disperse in the ocean? Decades of population genetic studies have revealed generally low levels of genetic structure at large spatial scales (hundreds of kilometres). Yet this result, typically based on discrete sampling designs, does not necessarily imply extensive dispersal. Here, we adopt a continuous sampling strategy along 950 km of coast in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea to address this question in four species.

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Understanding the processes shaping population structure and reproductive isolation of marine organisms can improve their management and conservation. Using genomic markers combined with estimation of individual ancestries, assignment tests, spatial ecology, and demographic modeling, we (i) characterized the contemporary population structure, (ii) assessed the influence of space, fishing depth, and sampling years on contemporary distribution, and (iii) reconstructed the speciation history of two cryptic redfish species, and . We genotyped 860 individuals in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean using 24,603 filtered single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

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Unraveling genetic population structure is challenging in species potentially characterized by large population size and high dispersal rates, often resulting in weak genetic differentiation. Genotyping a large number of samples can improve the detection of subtle genetic structure, but this may substantially increase sequencing cost and downstream bioinformatics computational time. To overcome this challenge, alternative, cost-effective sequencing approaches, namely Pool-seq and Rapture, have been developed.

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