Heterosis in Cepaea |
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Authors: | LAURENCE M COOK |
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Institution: | The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK |
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Abstract: | A test has been made of the association of heterozygosity with shell breadth in the polymorphic snail Cepaea nemoralis. The material was collected by C. B. Goodhart from a series of paired sites at which individuals reached different adult breadths. Dominant phenotypes, in which a large fraction was heterozygous, had a greater breadth and lower variance than recessive phenotypes regardless of whether the measurement was of shell ground colour, banding or the double recessive vs. the rest. Most of the difference was contributed by samples from the habitat where animals reached the largest size. The result is consistent with existence of heterotic sections of chromosome that include the colour and banding loci, and may help to explain the persistence of the polymorphism. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2007, 90 , 49–53. |
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Keywords: | associative overdominance Cepaea nemoralis epistasis fitness trait heterozygote advantage protected polymorphism visual selection |
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