Adaptation to dislodgement risk on wave-swept rocky shores in the snail Littorina saxatilis.

ABSTRACT: The periwinkle Littorina saxatilis has repeatedly evolved both a small, fragile and globose "wave ecotype" confined to wave-swept shores and a large, robust and elongated "crab ecotype" found in nearby crab-rich but less-exposed shores. This phenotypic divergence is assumed to reflect, in some part, local adaptation to wave exposure, but this hypothesis has received incomplete experimental testing. Here, we report a test of the prediction that the wave ecotype has a higher capacity to resist water flow than the crab ecotype. We sampled snails along a crab-wave transect and measured their resistance to dislodgement in a high-speed water flume with water speeds that match those of breaking waves in a range of relevant field conditions. Snails from the wave environment were consistently more

SUBMITTER: Le Pennec G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5653359 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature