SGER: Determining kin recognition in marine gastropods

这项探索性研究小额赠款旨在调查生殖模式之间的关系（即，无论该物种是否产生幼虫）和海洋系统中的近亲繁殖。 主要的假设是，一个没有自由生活幼虫的物种可能会遇到近亲作为潜在的配偶，因为它们的传播能力相对有限。 因此，PI假设，这些物种没有自由生活的幼虫将最有可能证明亲属识别作为一种手段，尽量减少近亲繁殖。 或者，有害的等位基因可能已经通过广泛的近亲繁殖从直接发育者的群体中大量清除，使得针对近亲繁殖的选择可能不再足够强以选择亲缘识别和回避。 最后，也有可能是近亲在直接发展的物种交配常规和产生的后代表现出近亲繁殖抑郁症。 主要研究者将对穹形假捻回和C. convexa来评估男性和女性在选择配偶时是否会在全同胞和非亲属之间进行歧视。 实验将对两种蜗牛中的每一种重复40次。 拟议的工作是极其劳动密集型的，但将产生明确的结果。

This Small Grant for Exploratory Research award is designed to investigate the relationship between reproductive patterns (i.e., whether the species produces larvae or not) and inbreeding in marine systems. The main hypothesis proposes that a species without free-living larvae will likely encounter close relatives as potential mates due to their relatively limited capacity for dispersal. Thus, the PI hypothesizes that such species without free-living larvae will most likely demonstrate kin recognition as a means of minimizing inbreeding. Alternatively, deleterious alleles may already be largely purged from the population of the direct developer through extensive inbreeding so that selection against inbreeding may no longer be strong enough to select for kin recognition and avoidance. Finally, it is also possible that close relatives in direct developing species mate routinely and produce progeny that exhibit inbreeding depression. The PI will conduct controlled matings for Crepidula fornicata and C. convexa to assess whether males and females discriminate between full-siblings and non-relatives in choosing mates. The experiment will be repeated forty times for each of the two snail species. The proposed work is extremely labor-intensive, but will give definitive results.