Friedrich, Madlen (2016) Testing for Local Adaptation of the Scyphozoan Mastigias papua to Low Oxygen in Marine Lakes in Palau. (Master thesis), Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, Kiel, Germany, 41 pp.

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Abstract

Living and survival in extreme environmental conditions require well adapted and often with special qualities equiped organisms. These survival mechanism emerge during evolution to increase the fitness of organisms. Mastigias papua (M. papua) show a high success level in low oxygen saturated marine lakes in Palau. After serious environmental changes, these organisms were trapped in the lakes and managed to survive despite changed and challenging conditions. The low oxygen concentration of the lakes is one of the factors making this environment so hostile to life, therefore this study examined if Mastigias papua have experienced positive selection in their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) triggered by slight concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the water column. M. papua mtDNA sequences of three coding genes cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, COI, cytochrome c oxidase subunit III, COIII, and cytochrome b, Cytb, and one non-coding gene 16S ribosomal RNA, 16S, were compared between organisms which inhabit two types of marine lakes (holomictic and meromictic) with organisms from nearby coves. No sign for positive selection in the mtDNA genes were found. The phylogenetic trees show low genetic distances between all organisms from all locations, suggesting, that M. papua had been already sufficiently adapted to low oxygen before the separating event.

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