SGER: Determining kin recognition in marine gastropods

这一探索性研究小额赠款奖旨在调查繁殖模式(即该物种是否产生幼虫)与海洋系统近亲繁殖之间的关系。主要假说认为，没有自由生活幼虫的物种可能会遇到近亲作为潜在配偶，因为它们的扩散能力相对有限。因此，PI假设，这些没有自由生活幼虫的物种很可能会证明亲缘识别是一种最大限度地减少近亲繁殖的手段。或者，有害的等位基因可能已经通过广泛的近亲交配从直接显影者的群体中大部分清除掉，因此针对近亲交配的选择可能不再足够强大，不足以选择用于亲属识别和避免。最后，也有可能是直接发育物种的近亲经常交配，并产生近亲繁殖衰退的后代。该协会将对福氏克雷鸟和凸纹克雷鸟进行受控配对，以评估雄性和雌性在选择配偶时是否歧视完全兄弟姐妹和非亲属。这两种蜗牛的实验将分别重复40次。拟议的工作是极其劳动密集型的，但将给出明确的结果。

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.