Strong habitat selection and the development of population structure in a mosquito

Summary

Remarkably simple and regular patterns of genic variation for two electrophoretically assayed loci are presented against a background of strong habitat selection, population isolation, and population structuring in the pitcher-plant mosquitoWyeomyia smithii. The genic variation assessed thus far comes from 29 local populations, all but one of which lie within the glaciated region of North America. Although the conclusions drawn from these patterns are still quite tentative, it appears that the fact that the same higher frequency electromorphs occurred everywhere for both loci may be due more to selection than drift. Drift or selection, acting alone or in concert may be responsible for the almost complete absence of electromorphs of intermediate frequency. A weak association was found between the two-locus genic variation and the well-studied diapause-development time variation in this species. It is suggested that a Wrightian interaction system and fluctuating-stabilizing selection might account for maintenance of the genic level polymorphism. The observations reported are circumstantially in accord with Wright's shifting balance process of evolution. Future studies in the older parts of the species range will put these hypotheses to a strong test.