Intralacustrine site fidelity and nonrandom mating in the littoral-spawning northern redbelly dace (Phoxinus eos)

Abstract

Natal site fidelity of the northern redbelly dace ( Phoxinus eos ), a common minnow in North America, was confirmed by combining ecological and genetic approaches. A 2-year mark–recapture experiment conducted at four sites separated by 50–450 m strongly supported the propensity of the dace to practice site fidelity during the reproductive period. Individuals recaptured at their marking sites were characterized with five microsatellite loci. Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and allelic differentiation tests revealed that the fish from different sites significantly differed from a single panmictic and genetically uniform population, thus confirming the homing behaviour of the dace. The detection of a pattern of isolation by distance revealed that migration mostly occurred between nearby sites and decreased as distance from birth site increased. When considering the high population density of dace, their high swimming capability, the distribution of the spawning sites along the littoral zone, and the small size of the lake studied (<5 ha), these results strongly suggest natal site fidelity in this species. The detection of this phenomenon for this species is extremely useful for empirical investigations of factors affecting patterns of isolation by distance and of evolutionary perspectives of natal site fidelity in fishes.