Comparing life history traits In native vs invasive asexual New Zealand mud snails
Abstract
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Comparing life history traits In native vs invasive asexual New Zealand mud snails
- Creators
- Carina Donne
- Contributors
- Maurine Neiman (Advisor)Andrew Forbes (Committee Member)Stephen Hendrix (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Science (MS), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Biology
- Date degree season
- Summer 2021
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005998
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- viii, 28 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2021 Carina Donne
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- color illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 23-28)
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Biological invasions are a worldwide problem, causing significant declines in biodiversity and severe economic losses. Furthering our understanding of biological invasions will not only provide insight into the mechanisms that drive invasion success but will also help provide a framework for robust management of invasions. An important question in biology is why some species and even lineages within species become invasive. The potential key to understanding invasions could be studying life-history traits which are important determinants of fitness. Here, I studied life-history traits in the New Zealand freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum. This asexual snail has invaded every continent except for Antarctica and Africa despite having low genetic variation. I focused on three life-history traits of growth rate, age at maturity and size at maturity. I also used previously collected genetic data to see if having higher genetic variation would lead to higher life-history trait variation. I was able to make direct comparisons to previously documented work of life-history traits in native asexual P. antipodarum. I found that the invasive snails grew more slowly and matured earlier than the native snails. I did not find any significant differences in size at maturity between the invasive and native snails. Furthermore, I did not find a relationship between genetic variation and life-history trait variation indicating there are other factors at play. Altogether, my results suggest that life-history traits of growth rate and age at maturity are important for the invasion success of P. antipodarum. This study provides new insights into the mechanisms driving invasion success and has implications for management efforts of preventing and containing the further spread of these invasive snails.
- Academic Unit
- Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984124360902771