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Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on March 23, 2009
Journal of Heredity 2009 100(4):455-464; doi:10.1093/jhered/esp007
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© The American Genetic Association. 2009. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Original Articles

Fast versus Slow Larval Growth in an Invasive Marine Mollusc: Does Paternity Matter?

Sabrina Le Cam, Jan A. Pechenik, Mathilde Cagnon, and Frédérique Viard

From the UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR 7144, Adaptation et Diversité en Milieu Marin, Station Biologique, Roscoff 29682, France (Le Cam, Cagnon, and Viard); the CNRS, UMR 7144, Team Div & Co, Station Biologique, Roscoff 29682, France (Le Cam, Cagnon, and Viard); and the Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155 (Pechenik)

Address correspondence to Sabrina Le Cam at the address above, or e-mail: lecam{at}sb-roscoff.fr.

Reproductive strategies and parental effects play a major role in shaping early life-history traits. Although polyandry is a common reproductive strategy, its role is still poorly documented in relation to paternal effects. Here, we used as a case study the invasive sessile marine gastropod Crepidula fornicata, a mollusc with polyandry and extreme larval growth variation among sibling larvae. Based on paternity analyses, the relationships between paternal identity and the variations in a major early life-history trait in marine organisms, that is, larval growth, were investigated. Using microsatellite markers, paternities of 437 fast- and slow-growing larvae from 6 broods were reliably assigned to a set of 20 fathers. No particular fathers were found responsible for the specific growth performances of their offspring. However, the range of larval growth rates within a brood was significantly correlated to 1) an index of sire diversity and 2) the degree of larvae relatedness within broods. Multiple paternity could thus play an important role in determining the extent of pelagic larval duration and consequently the range of dispersal distances achieved during larval life. This study also highlighted the usefulness of using indices based on fathers’ relative contribution to the progeny in paternity studies.

Key Words: larval dispersal • life-history traits • marine invader • paternity analysis • protandry

Corresponding Editor: Brian W. Bowen

Received November 13, 2008
Revised February 16, 2009
Accepted February 20, 2009


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