These lower genetic diversities and higher population expansion rates could be the result of either demographic or spatial range expansions.
At the middle and upper scenario of the catchment, there is high population density, high expansion of urbanization, deforestation, dispose of wastes, increase in microindustrialization and factories, high agricultural practice.
These meta-population dynamics varied across the geographical range examined with edge populations exhibiting lower genetic diversities and higher rates of population expansion than more central populations.
Three reefs Trunk (TRU), One Tree Island (OTI) and Sykes Reef (SYK) were characterised by low genetic diversities (Table 1), uni-modal, left-skewed mismatch distributions, high population growth rates and expansion times that could not be distinguished from 0 all consistent with population expansion.
In this stage of invasion, evolutionary processes are important for population expansion in high stress areas.
On the other hand, P. diabolicus appears to have undergone recent population expansion with high mobility throughout the sampled range.
The microevolutionary dynamics at the Nsp gene appear to be a mixture of demographic effects (population expansion and high migration) coupled with variation in functional constraint across the gene.
Although North Carolina has enjoyed rapid economic expansion and high population growth during the last 20 years, the study area has remained economically underdeveloped.
Certain other oncogenes (e.g. ras, bcl-2) rescue cells from susceptibility to apoptosis and so convert this high-turnover state into rapid population expansion.
Most reefs had comparably high genetic diversities (Table 1), low population expansion rates, and times that were significantly different from 0. This provides evidence for constant population size and was further supported by mismatch analysis for four of these reefs (YON, MYR, BRO, POL).
