Ecological Genetics and Mate Recognition Systems in Sympatric Rotifer Populations
PhD dissertation summary
Africa Gómez, 1996
(Copies available from the author)
This dissertation is a study of the population structure and dynamics, and the differentiation of specific mate recognition systems, including their ecological context, in populations of the common brackish water rotifer Brachionus plicatilis in the Prat de Cabanes-Torreblanca, a wetland having a high habitat diversity. Using allozyme electrophoresis, we analyzed the population structure of this taxon during more than an annual cycle. We also performed mating tests between strains, including genetically distinct strains collected in the marsh, and allopatric strains collected world-wide, and studied the ecological factors that explain the seasonal succession found in the marsh, and the patterns of sexual reproduction in natural populations.
Our results help to better understand the ecological diversity and evolutionary dynamics of monogonont rotifer populations, as they show that B. plicatilis, usually considered a cosmopolitan and ecological generalist species, is, on the contrary, a complex of three species ecologically specialized with regard to temperature and salinity, and with remarkable differentiation in sexual reproductive patterns and the signals used in mating, factors that, together differentiate the specific mate recognitions systems of these species. Furthermore, our results with allopatric strains show that, either there is a higher number of sibling species in this taxon, or that there is a strong geographic divergence in the signals used in mating behavior among conspecific populations. In our work, we propose models of speciation, both sympatric and allopatric, that are suitable for organisms reproducing through cyclical parthenogenesis, as well as procedures to analyze the alpha-taxonomy of these organisms.
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Africa GómezLast updated 14/4/99