TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nahavandi, Nahid
A1  - Ketmaier, Valerio
A1  - Tiedemann, Ralph
T1  - Intron structure of the elongation factor 1-alpha gene in the ponto-caspian amphipod pontogammarus maeoticus (Sowinsky, 1894) and its phylogeographic utility
JF  - Journal of crustacean biology
N2  - We tested the utility of a 230 base pair intron fragment of the highly conserved nuclear gene Elongation Factor 1-alpha (EF1-alpha) as a proper marker to reconstruct the phylogeography of the marine amphipod Pontogammarus maeoticus (Sowinsky, 1894) from the Caspian and Black Seas. As a prerequisite for further analysis, we confirmed by Southern blot analysis that EF1-alpha is encoded at a single locus in P. maeoticus. We included 15 populations and 60 individuals in the study. Both the phylogeny of the 27 unique alleles found and population genetic analyses revealed a significant differentiation between populations from the aforementioned sea basins. Our results are in remarkable agreement with recent studies on a variety of species from the same area, which invariably support a major phylogeographic break between the Caspian and Black Seas. We thus conclude that our EF1-alpha intron is an informative marker for phylogeographic studies in amphipods at the shallow population level.
KW  - Amphipoda
KW  - Elongation Factor 1-alpha
KW  - phylogeography
KW  - Ponto-Caspian region
KW  - Pontogammarus maeoticus
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1163/193724012X626584
SN  - 0278-0372
VL  - 32
IS  - 3
SP  - 425
EP  - 433
PB  - Brill
CY  - San Antonio
ER  -