FAS Abstracts 2004 Meeting Page

Atmospheric & Oceanographic Sciences (AOS): AOS-6

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Can the Queen conch travel around its Caribbean kingdom?  F. MORALES (1), E. IRLANDI (1), and D. CARROL (2). (1) Dept. Marine and Environmental Systems, (2) Dept. of Biological Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, 32901. Connectivity of sub populations via larval dispersal is essential for the survival of many species. In the Caribbean, queen conch (Strombus gigas) is the most important mollusk. More than 200 adult tissue, or single larva samples of queen conch were collected from throughout the Caribbean. Partial 16S rRNA sequences from the samples were compared by PCR amplification, DNA sequencing, and multiple sequence alignment similarity searches. The data reflect a pattern of distribution suggesting that the main currents in the area, as well as other small oceanographic features, are strongly related to genetic flow, thus supporting the connectivity theory through larval drift for queen conch in the Caribbean, contrasting with previous results on fish larvae studies.