Dataset Information

Ecological and genetic impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami on intertidal mud snails.

ABSTRACT: Natural disturbances often destroy local populations and can considerably affect the genetic properties of these populations. The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami greatly damaged local populations of various coastal organisms, including the mud snail Batillaria attramentaria, which was an abundant macroinvertebrate on the tidal flats in the Tohoku region. To evaluate the impact of the tsunami on the ecology and population genetic properties of these snails, we monitored the density, shell size, and microsatellite DNA variation of B. attramentaria for more than ten years (2005-2015) throughout the disturbance event. We found that the density of snails declined immediately after the tsunami. Bayesian inference of the genetically effective population size (N_e) demonstrated that the N_e declined by 60-99% at the study sites exposed to the tsunami. However, we found that their genetic diversity was not significantly reduced after the tsunami. The maintenance of genetic diversity is essential for long-term survival of local populations, and thus, the observed genetic robustness could play a key role in the persistence of snail populations in this region which has been devastated by similar tsunamis every 500-800 years. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the sustainability of populations damaged by natural disturbances.

SUBMITTER: Miura O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5345064 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecological and genetic impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami on intertidal mud snails.

Miura Osamu O Kanaya Gen G Nakai Shizuko S Itoh Hajime H Chiba Satoshi S Makino Wataru W Nishimura Tomohiro T Kojima Shigeaki S Urabe Jotaro J

Scientific reports 20170310

Natural disturbances often destroy local populations and can considerably affect the genetic properties of these populations. The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami greatly damaged local populations of various coastal organisms, including the mud snail Batillaria attramentaria, which was an abundant macroinvertebrate on the tidal flats in the Tohoku region. To evaluate the impact of the tsunami on the ecology and population genetic properties of these snails, we monitored the density, shell size, an ...[more]

PMID: 28281698

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Project description:BackgroundThe largest earthquake on record in Japan (magnitude 9.0) occurred on March 11, 2011, and the subsequent tsunami devastated the Pacific coast of Northern Japan. These further triggered the Fukushima I nuclear power plant accidents. Such a hugely complex disaster inevitably has negative psychological effects on general populations as well as on the direct victims. While previous disaster studies enrolled descriptive approaches focusing on direct victims, the structure of the psychological adjustment process of people from the general population has remained uncertain. The current study attempted to establish a path model that sufficiently reflects the early psychological adaptation process of the general population to large-scale natural disasters.Methods and findingsParticipants from the primary disaster area (n = 1083) and other areas (n = 2372) voluntarily participated in an online questionnaire study. By constructing path models using a structural equation model procedure (SEM), we examined the structural relationship among psychological constructs known related to disasters. As post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) were significantly more present in people in the primarily affected area than in those in secondary- or non-affected areas, the path models were constructed for the primary victims. The parsimoniously depicted model with the best fit was achieved for the psychological-adjustment centered model with quality of life (QoL) as a final outcome.ConclusionThe paths to QoL via negative routes (from negative cognitive appraisal, PTS, and general stress) were dominant, suggesting the importance of clinical intervention for reducing negative cognitive appraisal, and for caring for general stress and PTS to maintain QoL at an early stage of psychological adaptation to a disaster. The model also depicted the presence of a positive route where positive cognitive appraisal facilitates post-traumatic growth (PTG) to achieve a higher QoL, suggesting the potential importance of positive psychological preventive care for unexpected natural disasters.

Dataset Information

Ecological and genetic impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami on intertidal mud snails.

Publications

Ecological and genetic impact of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami on intertidal mud snails.

Similar Datasets

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