Genetic Connectivity and Diversity of a Protected, Habitat-Forming Species: Evidence Demonstrating the Need for Wider Environmental Protection and Integration of the Marine Protected Area Network
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Modiolus modiolus (horse mussel) reefs are an example of marine biodiversity hotspots of high conservation importance. Due to historical destruction and slow rates of recovery, the habitat is considered threatened and/or declining under the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic 1992, and therefore incorporated into the conservation legislation of several countries. An analysis of genetic connectivity and diversity of nine M. modiolus reefs across Scotland, both within and outside of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), was undertaken using 12 newly developed microsatellite markers. Analyses indicated moderate to high levels of genetic connectivity between all populations and significantly low genetic variance among populations. Generally, a lack of spatial genetic structure was determined though several populations were highlighted as potentially genetically separated. Structure and connectivity results were largely corroborated by network visualization which additionally identified several potentially key populations. All populations showed departure from Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) and positive inbreeding coefficients, suggesting reduced genetic diversity and/or reflecting the high frequency of null alleles observed across populations. However, allelic richness was uniformly high across all reefs compared to previously reported results for the habitat. Results broadly suggest that an open system of M. modiolus populations exists in Scottish waters and align with conclusions from prior larval dispersal modeling. Findings highlight that neither M. modiolus populations nor the MPAs where they are found should be considered discrete, independent entities and support the protection of features within MPAs in concert with non-designated areas and across varying spatial scales. It is proposed that potential for greater protection exists if all relevant Scottish MPAs, i.e., both those where M. modiolus reefs are a designated feature and those that host M. modiolus reefs, had statutory restrictions on all activities that cause damage to the sea bed. Such protection may facilitate the support of vulnerable populations by more resilient populations, particularly under climate change. Furthermore, given that a large number of unprotected M. modiolus populations may be important components in the interdependent system of reef populations, supplementary genetics studies informed by larval dispersal modeling are recommended to identify further key populations for safeguarding.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".