Unveiling the population structure of the genus Kogia (Odontocetes, Cetacea) in the central eastern Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

Until the last two decades, the species composing the Family Kogiidae – Kogia breviceps and Kogia sima – were almost completely unknown. Thanks to the use of molecular techniques, few studies were able to reconstruct the population genetics of the two species worldwide. The populations inhabiting different ocean basins appear to be discrete, but with two geographical areas with missing information: the Central Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea.

In this study we analysed a sample set from the Canary Islands (n=17 Kb; n=1Ks), and a single specimen of Kogia sima stranded in Sicily (Italy) in 2005.

All samples were sequenced for two mtDNA regions, consistently with previous molecular studies. Our preliminary data show that while the Kogia breviceps samples from Canary Islands fall inside clades including also Western Atlantic sequences, for Kogia sima, the few samples (n=1 from Canary Islands; n=1 from Italy) show to be extremely distinct from Western Atlantic conspecifics.