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ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND THE MAINTENANCE OF SEX IN A FRESHWATER SNAIL.

  • Lively CM Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405.
  • Lyons EJ Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405.
  • Peters AD Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405.
  • Jokela J Experimental Ecology, ETH-Zürich, ETH-Zentrum NW, CH-8092, Zürich, Switzerland.
  • 2017-06-01
Published in:
  • Evolution; international journal of organic evolution. - 1998
Competition
Potamopyrgus antipodarum
environmental stress
geographic parthenogenesis
mutational deterministic hypothesis
sexual reproduction
English Synergism among mutations can lead to an advantage to sexual reproduction, provided mutation rates are high enough (the mutational deterministic hypothesis). Here we tested the idea that competition for food can increase the advantage to sexual reproduction, perhaps by increasing the synergism among mutations in asexual individuals. We compared the survivorship of sexual and asexual snails (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) under two treatments: starved and fed. We predicted higher mortality for asexual snails when starved, but found that sexual and asexual individuals survived at the same rate, independent of treatment. These results suggest that the distribution of sex in this snail may not be explained by variation in competition among populations.
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  • English
Open access status
bronze
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/277030
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