Limited genomic signatures of population collapse in the critically endangered black abalone ( Haliotis cracherodii )

作者：Brock Wooldridge, Chloé Orland, Erik D. Enbody, Merly Escalona, Cade Mirchandani, Russell Corbett‐Detig, Joshua D. Kapp, Nathaniel Fletcher, Karah Cox‐Ammann, P. Raimondi, Beth Shapiro · 发表于：Molecular Ecology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1111/mec.17362 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Marine Bivalve and Aquaculture Studies、Genetic diversity and population structure、Marine and coastal plant biology

The black abalone, Haliotis cracherodii, is a large, long-lived marine mollusc that inhabits rocky intertidal habitats along the coast of California and Mexico. In 1985, populations were impacted by a bacterial disease known as withering syndrome (WS) that wiped out >90% of individuals, leading to the closure of all U.S. black abalone fisheries since 1993. Current conservation strategies include restoring diminished populations by translocating healthy individuals. However, population collapse on this scale may have dramatically lowered genetic diversity and strengthened geographic differentiation, making translocation-based recovery contentious. Additionally, the current prevalence of WS remains unknown. To address these uncertainties, we sequenced and analysed the genomes of 133 black abalone individuals from across their present range. We observed no spatial genetic structure among black abalone, with the exception of a single chromosomal inversion that increases in frequency with latitude. Outside the inversion, genetic differentiation between sites is minimal and does not scale with either geographic distance or environmental dissimilarity. Genetic diversity appears uniformly high across the range. Demographic inference does indicate a severe population bottleneck beginning just 15 generations in the past, but this decline is short lived, with present-day size far exceeding the pre-bottleneck status quo. Finally, we find the bacterial agent of WS is equally present acros...