Population genetics of Myosotella snails in the Azores

Résumé

Like many other archipelagos, the Azores are good naturel model to study speciation leading to numerous population genetics analysis particularly on plants. These islands are also rich in gastropods species. Myosotella snail are intertidal gastropods found almost everywhere in the world and that has been studied by de Frias Martins and Marques Mendes (2013) in the Azores. They have put in light possible species names based on penile complex morphology as well as a comparison with molecular analysis. The aim of this study is to go deeper inside molecular work by investigating the population genetics of Myosotella within the Azores. To achieve this, samples were taken from different populations of different islands and were amplified by PCR to be later sequenced. These sequences were used to build a phylogenetic tree and a haplotype network. Both the tree and the network show three distinct groups called A, B and C confirming the presence of genetic diversity inside the Azores. Some is-lands (or island’s site) also have more than one haplotype which confirms that genetic diversity within island exist too. Unfortunately, linking genetic diversity with population’s location wasn’t possible for all sampling sites because of distant haplotypes. Many hypotheses arise from this results like human errors during laboratory experiments, the existence of different populations/groups/species inside a same sampling site or the possibility of sexual genetic differences (faster mutation rate inside male). This study wasn’t optimised especially because the primer sets that worked randomly among samples but also because of lack of understanding about basic biology of Myosotella. Further work needs to be done taking these two issues into account to obtain the most reliable results and interpretations.

la date de réponse	2024
langue originale	Anglais
L'institution diplômante	Universite de Namur Université Catholique de Louvain
Superviseur	Alice Dennis (Promoteur)