Population structure and coil dimorphism in a tropical land snail.

摘要: Tree snails of the subgenus Amphidromus s. str. are unusual because chiral dimorphism that exists in many species, with clockwise (dextrally) and counter-clockwise (sinistrally) coiled individuals co-occurring same population. Given mating is normally impeded when two partners have opposite coil, positive frequency-dependent selection should prevent such from persisting. We test hypothesis a strong population structure little movement between tree-based demes may result fixation coiling morphs at very small spatial scale, but apparent all larger scales. To do so, we describe Malaysian A. inversus (Muller, 1774) 36% dextrals. marked almost 700 juvenile adult piece forest consisting 92 separate trees, recorded dispersal proportions dextrals sinistrals trees over 7-day period. observed frequent (155 events), found no had snail populations were significantly different random. Upon recapture 1 year later, two-thirds moved away their original tree. conclude alone cannot stabilise coil Amphidromus.