Abstract:
Artificial reefs improve the hydrodynamics at sea bottom, providing shelter and stepping stones for marine species, and facilitate fish attraction/production. In this work, 10 pairs of microsatellite primers were selected to evaluate the effect of artificial reefs on genetic diversity and biological connectivity of
Charybdis japonica in Juehua Island, Bohai Sea.
Charybdis japonica samples were taken from five communities of seagrass-beds, two natural reefs, sand sediments, and artificial reefs ecosystem. The effective alleles
Ne of the 10 loci was 2.94-17.72, the observed heterozygosity
Ho and expected heterozygosity
He were 0.30-0.82 and 0.67-0.95, respectively. Genetic diversity of
Charybdis japonica from various ecosystems was high, the effective allele number
Ne was 6.06-7.45, observed heterozygosity
Ho ranged from 0.64 to 0.74, expected heterozygosity
He was from 0.85 to 0.88. The mean Shannon information index was 1.95 ± 0.07, and polymorphism information content PIC from all ecosystems was (80.03 ± 1.31)%. Average
F-statistics (
FIS,
FIT,
FST) of the 10 microsatellite loci of
Charybdis japonica were 0.207 ± 0.156, 0.240 ± 0.152, and 0.050 ± 0.013, respectively, indicating different inbreeding degree of genetic differentiation.
FST values of
Charybdis japonica among various ecosystems ranged from 0.001 to 0.026, the genetic differentiation in
Charybdis japonica of all the paired ecosystems was small (
FST < 0.05). The gene flow of
Charybdis japonica was from 9.410 to 567.932, much greater than 1. The level of gene exchange in
Charybdis japonica among different ecosystems was high, showing strong biological connectivity. The biological connectivity among seagrass-beds, natural reefs and artificial reefs was very high, but that of the sand sediment with other ecosystems was low. This verified that artificial reefs have beneficial effects for habitat restoration and resource conservation.