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Free keywords:
effective population size; Eudiaptomus sp.; microsatellites; N-e/N-c ratio; temporal approach
Abstract:
In small planktonic organisms, large census sizes (N-c) suggest large effective population sizes (N-e), but reliable estimates are rare. Here, we present N-e/N-c ratios for two freshwater copepod species (Eudiaptomus sp.) using temporal samples of multilocus microsatellite genotypes and a pseudo-likelihood approach. N-e/N-c ratios were very small in both Eudiaptomus species (10(-7)-10(-8)). Although we hypothesized that the species producing resting eggs (E. graciloides) had a larger N-e than the other (E. gracilis), estimates were not statistically different (E. graciloides: N-e = 672.7, CI: 276-1949; E. gracilis: N-e = 1027.4, CI: 449-2495), suggesting that the propagule bank of E. graciloides had no detectable influence on N-e.