Contemporary effective population and metapopulation size (Ne and meta-Ne): Comparison among three salmonids inhabiting a fragmented system and differing in gene flow and its asymmetries

Abstract

We estimated local and metapopulation effective sizes (N^e and meta-N^e) for three coexisting salmonid species (Salmo salar, Salvelinus fontinalis, Salvelinus alpinus) inhabiting a freshwater system comprising seven interconnected lakes. First, we hypothesized that N^e might be inversely related to within-species population divergence as reported in an earlier study (i.e., FST: S. salar> S. fontinalis> S. alpinus). Using the approximate Bayesian computation method implemented in ONeSAMP, we found significant differences in N^e (N^eOSMP) between species, consistent with a hierarchy of adult population sizes (N^eS.salar