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Julien Chopelet School of Biology & Environmental Science |
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Population genetic consequences of sex change in marine fish
In many marine fish species, all individuals mature as one sex and later "reverse" into the other sex when older. This determines a very skewed sex-ratio between many young fish of one sex and few old ones of the other, reducing the number of reproductively successful individuals. Population genetic theory predicts that low effective population size facilitates random genetic drift and decreases potential for gene flow, with the result of reducing genetic diversity within populations and increasing differentiation among them.
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My study aims to determine whether empirical data confirm the expectation of higher degree of genetic sub-structuring in sex-changing fish. We are working on four species of Sparidae: Chrysoblephus puniceus (protogynous hermaphrodite) and Cheimerius nufar (late gonochorist) from the Natal coast of South Africa; Pagellus erythrinus (protogynous hermaphrodite) and Oblada melanura (gonochorist) from the Mediterranean Sea.
Supervisor: Stefano Mariani Collaborators: Bruce Mann and Robin Waples
Publications
Chopelet J, Waples RS, Mariani S (in press) Sex Change and Population Structure in Marine Fish. Fish and Fisheries
Chopelet J, Helyar S, Mann B and Marianni S (2009) Novel Polymorphic Microsatellite loci for the protogynous hermaphrodite Slinger Sea Bream (Chrysoblephus puniceus, Sparidae). Molecular Ecology Resources (online)
Chopelet J, Dufresne F and Blier PU (2008) Plasticity of Growth Rate and Metabolism in Daphnia magna Populations from Different Thermal Habitats. Journal of Experimental Zoology 309 A pdf
Jansen Van Vuuren B, Kinet S, Chopelet J and Catzeflis F (2004) Geographic patterns of genetic variation in four neotropical rodents: conservation implications for small game mammals in French Guiana. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 81, 203-218 pdf
Conferences
Chopelet J, Waples R and Mariani S (2008) Does sex-change increase population genetic structure in marine fish? Satellite Symposium to the SEB Annual Main Meeting in Marseille (4th – 5th July) at the Station Méditerranéenne de l’Environnement Littoral, Sète pdf
Chopelet J, Dufresne F, Blier PU (2006) Metabolic adaptation to temperature in Daphnia magna. April 3-4 2006, first annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution 2006 (CSEE 2006).
Workshop
ConGen 2008: Genetic Data Analysis Course, 9-14 September, Porto, Portugal: Recent Approaches for Estimation of Population Size, Structure, Gene flow and Selection detection ConGen 2008
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