Glacial history of the North Atlantic marine snail, Littorina saxatilis, inferred from distribution of mitochondrial DNA lineages.

ABSTRACT: The North Atlantic intertidal gastropod, Littorina saxatilis (Olivi, 1792), exhibits extreme morphological variation between and within geographic regions and has become a model for studies of local adaptation; yet a comprehensive analysis of the species' phylogeography is lacking. Here, we examine phylogeographic patterns of the species' populations in the North Atlantic and one remote Mediterranean population using sequence variation in a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (607 bp). We found that, as opposed to many other rocky intertidal species, L. saxatilis has likely had a long and continuous history in the Northwest Atlantic, including survival during the last glacial maximum (LGM), possibly in two refugia. In the Northeast Atlantic, several areas likely harboured refug

SUBMITTER: Panova M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3055875 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature