Data from: Connectivity of Caribbean coral populations: complementary insights from empirical and modelled gene flow

Understanding patterns of connectivity among populations of marine organisms is essential for the development of realistic, spatially explicit models of population dynamics. Two approaches, theoretical and empirical population genetic models, have been used to estimate levels of evolutionary connectivity among marine populations but rarely have their potentially-complementary insights been combined. Here, a spatially-realistic Lagrangian model of larval dispersal and a theoretical genetic model are integrated with the most extensive study of gene flow in a Caribbean marine organism. The 871 genets collected from 26 sites spread over the wider Caribbean sub-sampled 45.8% of the 1900 potential unique genets in the model. At a coarse scale, significant consensus between modelled estimates of genetic structure and empirical genetic data for populations of the reef-building coral Montastraea annularis is observed. However, modelled and empirical data differ in their estimates of connectivity among northern Mesoamerican reefs indicating that processes other than dispersal may dominate here. Further, the geographic location and porosity of the previously described east-west barrier to gene flow in the Caribbean is refined. A multi-prong approach, integrating genetic data and spatially-realistic models of larval dispersal and genetic projection, provides complementary insights into the processes underpinning population connectivity in marine invertebrates on evolutionary timescales.解析海洋生物种群间的连通模式，对于构建兼具真实性与空间显式性的种群动态模型至关重要。当前学界常通过理论种群遗传模型与经验种群遗传模型两种途径，估算海洋种群间的进化连通水平，但极少将二者本可互补的研究视角相结合。本研究将具备空间真实性的拉格朗日（Lagrangian）幼体扩散模型与理论遗传模型，与迄今针对加勒比海域海洋生物最全面的基因流研究相结合。本研究从分布于广义加勒比海区域的26个采样位点中采集了871个基因型株系（genets），该样本占模型中1900个潜在唯一基因型株系的45.8%。在粗尺度下，造礁珊瑚环纹菊珊瑚（Montastraea annularis）的模型遗传结构估算结果，与对应种群的经验遗传数据之间呈现显著一致性。但在中美洲北部礁群的连通性估算上，模型结果与经验数据存在显著差异，这表明该区域的种群连通过程可能并非以扩散过程为主导。此外，本研究还细化了此前报道的加勒比海东西向基因流屏障的地理分布与孔隙度。这种整合了遗传数据、空间显式幼体扩散模型与遗传投影模型的多维度研究方法，为解析演化时间尺度下海洋无脊椎动物种群连通的核心过程提供了互补性研究视角。