Asexual reproduction and genetic population structure in the colonizing sea anemone haliplanella luciae

TLDR: Genetic and the concomitant physiological uniformity explain the well-known tendency for local populations of Haliplanella to disappear suddenly and illustrate a common outcome of the founder effect.

Abstract: Populations of Haliplanella luciae on the Atlantic coast of North America typically are composed of one or a few strictly asexual clones. The lack of genetic variability in one local population, that at Blue Hill Falls, Maine, is reflected in the population's response to extremes of temperature and salinity. As the limits of tolerance are approached, there is an abrupt and epidemic incidence of mortality, rather than a gradual one. Genetic and the concomitant physiological uniformity explain the well-known tendency for local populations of Haliplanella to disappear suddenly and illustrate a common outcome of the founder effect.The success of Haliplanella as a colonizer is due to its extreme hardiness toward physical environmental factors and to its prolific asexual nature. Asexual reproduction by longitudinal fission and by pedal laceration not only provides a means of rapid colonization of a new habitat, but also a means of producing multiple copies of genotypes that have proved to be successful under lo...