Pleistocene Sea‐Level Fluctuation Shapes Archipelago‐Wide Population Structure in the Critically Endangered Lord Howe Island Cockroach Panesthia lata

Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations have significantly shaped the population structure of the critically endangered Lord Howe Island cockroach (Panesthia lata) across its archipelago, revealing historical faunal connectivity. The study, which analyzed nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphisms and complete mitochondrial genomes from four islands in the Lord Howe Island Group (LHIG), found that the lineage on Ball's Pyramid is highly divergent from others, while populations on Lord Howe Island, Roach Island, and Blackburn Island may have diverged as recently as the end of the last interglacial period. Surprisingly, a relict population of P. lata was discovered on Lord Howe Island, despite its presumed local extirpation by rodents, though this population shows high kinship indicative of a strong bottleneck. The findings suggest that genetic rescue from other islands could be a viable conservation strategy for this species and others similarly impacted by rodents.

Adams, M. W. D., Ewart, K. M., Carlile, N., Rose, H. A., Walker, J. A., Hutton, I., Ho, S. Y. W., & Lo, N. (2026). Pleistocene Sea‐Level Fluctuation Shapes Archipelago‐Wide Population Structure in the Critically Endangered Lord Howe Island Cockroach Panesthia lata. Ecology and Evolution, 16(3). Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.72760