GENETIC VARIATION IN SYMPATRIC AND ALLOPATRIC POPULATIONS OF HYBRIDIZING FRESHWATER SNAIL SPECIES(VIVIPARUS ATER AND V. CONTECTUS)

To estimate the geographical extent of introgression, we studiedthe genetic structure of sympatric and allopatric populationsof hybridizing freshwater snail species Viviparus ater and V.contectus in central Europe. Six allozyme loci which were variablein Lake Garda, Italy in a previous study (five nearly diagnosticloci between the two species and one highly polymorphic locusin V. contectus) were analyzed from ten sympatric locationsand four allopatric populations each for the two species. Presumablyintrogressed genes (low allele frequencies) were found fromat least one locus in seven out of the ten sympatric sites.These seven sites covered most of northern Italy. The data indicatethat introgression has occurred from Viviparus contectus toV. ater and vice versa. Therefore, there is a possibility ofwidespread introgression or mosaic zones in nature. However,we cannot rule out that the observed patterns are due to theshared ancestry. V. ater possessed low genetic variation (thejackknifed mean of Wright's F_ST±S.E. over four loci was0.041±0.004). On the other hand, V. contectus showedhigh genetic differentiation (the jackknifed mean of F_ST±S.E. over six loci was 0.546±0.166). Although introgressionmay have caused evolutionary changes in V. ater and V. contectus,it was not strong enough to level out the genetic differencesbetween the two species, which may have originated from isolationamong populations in V. contectus and a past bottleneck eventin V. ater. (Received 21 June 1996; accepted 31 January 1997)     

A STATISTICAL METHOD TO COMPARE THE DEGREE OF MUSCLE CELL MULTIPLICATION IN DIFFERENT CULTURE DISHES

A method was developed for comparing two groups of numbers of cultured muscle cells which were counted under a microscope. Practically important problems for this purpose were: how many fields per dish should be observed, and how many dishes should be prepared under the same conditions, when given test criteria were set.
In the present experiment, 4 dishes were prepared under the same conditions. From each of the dishes, 20 fields were selected, and the numbers of muscle cells *** were counted and separately recorded. Since the purpose was to compare two groups of dishes, the design was a simple case of a nested one. From the experiment, the type of distribution seemed approximately a long-normal distribution with constancy of variance (homoscedasticity). Since the distribution of the cells in dishes belonging to the same group could be considered to be the same, the numbers from each dish could be pooled within a group. Therefore, if the test criteria for Student's t test and the sensitivity to descriminate the ratio of the number of groups are given, the number of fields to be observed per dish times that of dishes can be uniquely determined. This method can be applied for the same purpose to other kinds of cells with log-normal distribution.