Journal article
Parasite resistance predicts fitness better than fecundity in a natural population of the freshwater snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum
Evolution, Vol.73(8), pp.1634-1646
08/2019
DOI: 10.1111/evo.13768
PMID: 31127854
Abstract
The cost of males should give asexual females an advantage when in competition with sexual females. In addition, high‐fecundity asexual genotypes should have an advantage over low‐fecundity clones, leading to reduction in clonal diversity over time. To evaluate fitness components in a natural population, we measured the annual reproductive rate of individual sexual and asexual female Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a New Zealand freshwater snail, in field enclosures that excluded competitors and predators. We used allozyme genotyping to assign the asexual females to particular clonal genotypes. We found that the most fecund asexual clones had similar or higher fecundity as the top 10% of sexual families, suggesting that fecundity selection, even without the cost of males, would lead to replacement of the sexual population by clones. Consequently, we expected that the clones with the highest fecundity would dominate the natural population. Counter to this prediction, we found that high annual reproductive rates did not correlate with the frequency of clones in the natural population. When we exposed the same clones to parasites in the laboratory, we found that resistance to infection was positively correlated with the frequency of clones in the population. The correlation between fecundity and parasite resistance was negative, suggesting a trade‐off between these two traits. Our results thus suggest that parasite resistance is an important short‐term predictor of the success of asexual P. antipodarum in this population.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Parasite resistance predicts fitness better than fecundity in a natural population of the freshwater snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum
- Creators
- Dorota Paczesniak - University of SaskatchewanKirsten Klappert - ETH‐ZürichKirstin Kopp - Velux StiftungMaurine Neiman - University of IowaKatri Seppälä - ETH‐ZürichCurtis M Lively - Indiana UniversityJukka Jokela - ETH‐Zürich
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Evolution, Vol.73(8), pp.1634-1646
- DOI
- 10.1111/evo.13768
- PMID
- 31127854
- ISSN
- 0014-3820
- eISSN
- 1558-5646
- Number of pages
- 13
- Grant note
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung National Science Foundation
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 08/2019
- Academic Unit
- Office Of The Provost; Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9984217531002771
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