| The field of coral molecular biology has been afflicted with a paucity of markers appropriate for elucidating taxonomic and population genetic relationships. In order to better understand these relationships I have developed a suite of molecular markers with enough resolution to allow inference at these shallow levels. To begin, degenerate primers were designed to amplify mitochondrial introns with the hope that they would accumulate mutations faster than the rest of the mitochondrial genome, however this was not the case. While they are still able to amplify mitochondrial DNA across a wide range of taxa, they are not useful for elucidating species level relationships. Nuclear exon-spanning-intron-crossing (EPIC) markers were looked at next and resolution sufficient to understand these relationships has been demonstrated in both the soft coral genus Carijoa and hard coral genus Montipora described in this paper. Finally, microsatellite libraries were created for four species of Hawaiian scleractinian corals, which evolve fast relative to mitochondrial DNA and are useful for understanding population genetic relationships. The final two chapters of my thesis are case studies examining the origin of a purported "alien" species in Hawai'i. Carijoa riisei is an azooxanthellate octocoral believed to have originated in the Caribbean, however based on molecular genetics, I have shown that it is native to the Indo-Pacific. In the final chapter I investigate the population genetic relationships and connectivity of an abundant reef building coral in Hawai'i and investigate the four population groupings present in the archipelago and their consistency with designed conservation areas. |
