Low temperature and low salinity drive putatively adaptive growth differences in populations of threespine stickleback.

ABSTRACT: Colonisation can expose organisms to novel combinations of abiotic and biotic factors and drive adaptive divergence. Yet, studies investigating the interactive effects of multiple abiotic factors on the evolution of physiological traits remain rare. Here we examine the effects of low salinity, low temperature, and their interaction on the growth of three North American populations of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). In north-temperate freshwater habitats, stickleback populations experience a combination of low salinity and low winter temperatures that are not experienced by the ancestral marine and anadromous populations. Here we show that both salinity and temperature, and their interaction, have stronger negative effects on marine and anadromous populations than a freshwa

SUBMITTER: Gibbons TC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5711929 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature