Séminaire Ecobio - James Reeve (Univ. Gothenburg, Suède)
Rethinking ecotypes: heterogeneous environments and the role of chromosomal inversions in local adaptation of an intertidal snail
Diversity within species is often shaped by the environment. Ecotypes are a syndrome of strong environmentally driven local adaptation, causing distinct genetic structure and phenotypic traits.
I have been studying the role seventeen chromosomal inversions have had in forming ecotypes in the intertidal snail Littorina saxatilis. Much of this research has focused on contact zones where these ecotypes meet. In this talk I put these ecotypes into a broader context by investigating how chromosomal inversions have shaped phenotypic variation across every available habitat in a local region.
Through combined analysis of environmental, phenotypic and inversion data, I will show that L. saxatilis ecotypes are part of a continuum of diversity. Chromosomal inversions have a major role in shaping these differences, and are associated with other environmental gradients. Collectively these results show that diversity in L. saxatilis is more than just ecotype division
