Genetic diversity of the Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, in Korea and Japan inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene

The genetic diversity and population history of the Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, were investigated with a nucleotide sequence analysis of 536 base pairs (bp) of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene (COI) in 111 samples collected from four populations in Korea and one in Japan. In total, 28 haplotypes were defined by 27 variable nucleotide sites in the COI region examined. The observed haplotypes had a shallow haplotype genealogy and no geographical associations. Most of the populations had high haplotype diversity (0.656-0.788) and low nucleotide diversity (0.00165-0.00244), and significant negative values for Fu's $F_S$, suggesting rapid and recent population growth from an ancestral population and sudden population expansion. The pairwise fixation indices ($F_{ST}$) estimated with the exact test and the migration rates indicate that substantial gene flow occurs among these populations as a result of sea currents, except between the Yellow Sea coast of Korea (BUA) and the Pacific Ocean coast of Japan (JPA). These two populations (BUA and JPA) showed significant genetic differentiation and low migration rate.