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Negative assortative mating and maintenance of shell colour polymorphism in Littorina (Neritrema) species

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Abstract

Colour polymorphism is a widespread phenomenon in natural populations of several species. In particular, it is especially common on marine gastropod species from the genus Littorina. Recently, it has been argued that intrapopulation shell colour polymorphism in Littorina fabalis could be caused by negative frequency-dependent sexual selection via a mechanism of mate choice (indirectly estimated through negative assortative mating). Here we try to determine the existence of negative assortative mating in three species of the subgenus Neritrema (L. fabalis, L. obtusata, L. saxatilis) that share a similar shell colour polymorphism, to ascertain if this mechanism could represent an ancestral character in this subgenus that could be contributing to the maintenance of the colour polymorphism observed in each species. We collected or reanalysed from previous studies a sample of mating pairs of these three species from seven locations from NW Spain and NE Russia and estimated assortative mating using the IPSI index. Our results suggest that all species and populations show a systematic tendency towards negative assortative mating when shell colour is grouped in the broad categories ‘light’ and ‘dark’. Moreover, a more detailed analysis of each colour separately suggests that shell colour may not be the main target of assortative mating, but perhaps a physically-linked trait to the real target of selection. This hypothesis opens interesting new lines of research in Littorina snails.

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Data availability

Data available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13295873.v1.

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New software has not been used.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Raquel Sampedro for technical contribution and Mary Ryadigos for administrative contribution. This work has received financial support from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (CGL2016-75482-P) and Xunta de Galicia (Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2019-2022) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund-ERDF). J Galindo was funded by a JIN project (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, code RTI2018-101274-J-I00). I Novo was founded by a FPU grant (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, code FPU18/04642). S Blanco was founded by a Xunta de Galicia grant (ED481A-2020/142). J Gefaell was founded by a University of Vigo Predoctoral Research grant (PREUVIGO/00VI 131H 641.02).

Funding

This study has been funded by CGL2016-75482-P, Program and ERDF Operational European Union Program Galicia 2014-2020, RTI2018-101274-J-I00.

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Author notes

  1. J. Gefaell and J. Galindo made similar contributions, or shared first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Bioquímica, Genética e Inmunología and Centro de Investigación Mariña (CIM-UVIGO), Universidade de Vigo, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    J. Gefaell, J. Galindo, C. Malvido, V. Núñez, S. Blanco, M. González-Conde, S. Martínez-Domínguez, I. Novo, G. Pérez-Fernández, A. Rus, I. Mosconi & E. Rolán-Alvarez

  2. Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Nuuk, Greenland

    D. Estévez

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  1. J. Gefaell
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Contributions

ERA, JG and JG contributed to experimental design and idea and wrote a first draft. All authors contributed to sampling and data preparation and revision of manuscript versions. JG, JG, CM, VN, ERA have contributed to analysis and data discussion.

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Correspondence to E. Rolán-Alvarez.

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Gefaell, J., Galindo, J., Malvido, C. et al. Negative assortative mating and maintenance of shell colour polymorphism in Littorina (Neritrema) species. Mar Biol 168, 151 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03959-z

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