Alternative breeding times and evolutionary pathways in corals in north Western Australia

This thesis explored the influence of asynchronous reproductive timing on patterns of genetic structure in coral populations, at both ecological and evolutionary scales, in the context of understanding the evolution of seasonal breeding patterns in Western Australia. The major findings were (i) conspecific colonies spawning in different seasons were highly genetically differentiated (ii) seasonal breeding patterns in corals in WA are a result of long-term natural selection, not an inherited genetic legacy (iii) seasonal cohorts were associated with divergent lineages of the phylogenetic marker PaxC; this pattern was unique to the PaxC marker suggesting a selective connection between PaxC and reproductive timing in corals.