In:
Biology Letters, The Royal Society, Vol. 9, No. 6 ( 2013-12-23), p. 20130849-
Abstract:
Effective population size ( N e ) determines the rate of genetic drift and the relative influence of selection over random genetic changes. While free-living protist populations characteristically consist of huge numbers of cells ( N ), the absence of any estimates of contemporary N e raises the question whether protist effective population sizes are comparably large. Using microsatellite genotype data of strains derived from revived cysts of the marine dinoflagellate Pentapharsodinium dalei from sections of a sediment record that spanned some 100 years, we present the first estimates of contemporary N e for a local population in a free-living protist. The estimates of N e are relatively small, of the order of a few 100 individuals, and thus are similar in magnitude to values of N e reported for multicellular animals: the implications are that N e of P. dalei is of many orders of magnitude lower than the number of cells present ( N e / N ∼ 10 −12 ) and that stochastic genetic processes may be more prevalent in protist populations than previously anticipated.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1744-9561
,
1744-957X
DOI:
10.1098/rsbl.2013.0849
Language:
English
Publisher:
The Royal Society
Publication Date:
2013
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2103283-X
SSG:
12
