Phylogeography of Blue Corals (Genus Heliopora) Across the Indo-West Pacific

Species delimitation of corals is one the most challenging issues in coral reef ecology and conservation. Morphology can obscure evolutionary relationships, molecular datasets are consistently revealing greater within-species diversity than currently understood. Most phylogenetic studies, however, have examined narrow geographic areas phylogeographic expansion required to obtain more robust interpretations within- among- species relationships. In case blue Heliopora , there two valid ( H. coerulea hiberniana ) as evidenced by integrated genetic morphological analyses northwestern Australia. There also distinct lineages Kuroshio Current region that morphologically reproductively different from each other. Sampling all spp. across Indo-Pacific essential a complete picture patterns. To examine relationships within genus we applied Multiplexed inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) Genotyping sequencing (MIG-seq) on > 1287 colonies Indo-West Pacific. Maximum likelihood trees indicated samples comprise three genetically groups: group, new undescribed sp. group with further subdivisions group. Geographic structuring evident among found Indo-Malay Archipelago biased toward Indian Ocean whilst was only Singapore, indicating this taxon distributed western Pacific Archipelago. has wider distribution, being This study highlights effectiveness analysis using genome-wide markers importance examining populations their distribution range understand localized structure speciation patterns corals.