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Close up of an adult crown-of-thorns sea star, Acanthaster cf. solaris, on Porites coral on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
Corallivorous crown-of-thorns sea stars are among the most influential keystone predators in tropical coral reef ecosystems. Adult populations undergo extreme population size fluctuations or outbreaks and can decimate coral reefs. Whole-genome sequencing of parent-offspring trios in this species revealed unexpectedly high mutation rates and reduced effective population size, despite population abundance exceeding 20- 90 million individuals. Such fundamental knowledge advances our understanding of mutation rate evolution and how genetic diversity is maintained in large marine populations. See Popovic et al. Download February's cover page.
Image Credit: Sven Uthicke
Citation: (2024) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 20(2) April 2024. PLoS Genet 20(2): ev20.i02. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v20.i02
Published: April 9, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Corallivorous crown-of-thorns sea stars are among the most influential keystone predators in tropical coral reef ecosystems. Adult populations undergo extreme population size fluctuations or outbreaks and can decimate coral reefs. Whole-genome sequencing of parent-offspring trios in this species revealed unexpectedly high mutation rates and reduced effective population size, despite population abundance exceeding 20- 90 million individuals. Such fundamental knowledge advances our understanding of mutation rate evolution and how genetic diversity is maintained in large marine populations. See Popovic et al. Download February's cover page.
Image Credit: Sven Uthicke