Sea slugs unplugged: Review of subpopulation sampling in phylogeographic studies of nudibranchs and their allies

Across mitochondrial-barcode phylogeographic studies of marine sea slugs, sampling designs vary widely, yet significant population differentiation appears on both small and large spatial scales.

• Why it matters: Cryptic nudibranch groups have unknown ecological and phenotypic diversity, and “unplugged” single-locus surveys are used to plan deeper comparative work, but sampling–structure relationships are unclear.
• What they did: The review examined molecular-variance analyses using mitochondrial barcode sequences, testing whether subpopulation sampling patterns relate to differentiation magnitude and geographic scale.
• The result: Two significant associations were found between sampling variables and population genetic variables, suggesting they can guide or help interpret sampling design in future comparative studies.

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