Abstract
Seminal fluid proteins (SFPs) can trigger drastic changes in mating partners, mediating post-mating sexual selection and associated sexual conflict. Also, cross-species comparisons have demonstrated that SFPs evolve rapidly and hint that post-mating sexual selection drives their rapid evolution. In principle, this pattern should be detectable within species as rapid among-population divergence in SFP expression and function. However, given the multiple other factors that could vary among populations, isolating divergence in SFP-mediated effects is not straightforward. Here, we attempted to address this gap by combining the power of a common garden design with functional assays involving artificial injection of SFPs in the simultaneously hermaphroditic freshwater snail, Lymnaea stagnalis. We detected among-population divergence in SFP gene expression, suggesting that seminal fluid composition differs among four populations collected in Western Europe. Furthermore, by artificially injecting seminal fluid extracted from these field-derived snails into standardized mating partners, we also detected among-population divergence in the strength of post-mating effects induced by seminal fluid. Both egg production and subsequent sperm transfer of partners differed depending on the population origin of seminal fluid, with the response in egg production seemingly closely corresponding to among-population divergence in SFP gene expression. Our results thus lend strong intraspecific support to the notion that SFP expression and function evolve rapidly, and confirm L. stagnalis as an amenable system for studying processes driving SFP evolution.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1440-1451 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of Evolutionary Biology |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 10 |
Early online date | 22 Jul 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2020 |
Funding
We appreciate support from Carool Popelier for maintaining the laboratory strain at Vrije University Amsterdam; Thierry Caquet and Paul Boisseaux for assisting the sampling of Lyon population (F2); University Museum Utrecht (De Oude Hortus) for letting YN collect snails; and Bahar Patlar, Michael Weber, Renate Feist and Klaus Reinhold for help conducting experiments. This research was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers to YN). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. We appreciate support from Carool Popelier for maintaining the laboratory strain at Vrije University Amsterdam; Thierry Caquet and Paul Boisseaux for assisting the sampling of Lyon population (F2); University Museum Utrecht (De Oude Hortus) for letting YN collect snails; and Bahar Patlar, Michael Weber, Renate Feist and Klaus Reinhold for help conducting experiments. This research was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers to YN). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Keywords
- accessory gland proteins
- among-population divergence
- functional assay
- sexual conflict
- sexual selection
- simultaneous hermaphrodite