Evidence for stronger discrimination between conspecific and heterospecific mating partners in sexual vs. asexual female freshwater snails.

ABSTRACT: Once-useful traits that no longer contribute to fitness tend to decay over time. Here, we address whether the expression of mating-related traits that increase the fitness of sexually reproducing individuals but are likely less useful or even costly to asexual counterparts seems to exhibit decay in the latter. Potamopyrgus antipodarum is a New Zealand freshwater snail characterized by repeated transitions from sexual to asexual reproduction. The frequent coexistence of sexual and asexual lineages makes P. antipodarum an excellent model for the study of mating-related trait loss. Under the presumption (inherent in the Biological Species Concept) that failure to discriminate between conspecific and heterospecific mating partners represents a poor mate choice, we used a mating c

SUBMITTER: Stork S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9701497 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature