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Locomotor responses to salt stress in native and invasive mud-tidal gastropod populations (Batillaria)
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  • Phuong-Thao Ho,
  • Hoa Nguyen,
  • Elizabeth Kern,
  • Yong-Jin Won
Phuong-Thao Ho
Duy Tan University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Hoa Nguyen
Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology
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Elizabeth Kern
Ewha Womans University
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Yong-Jin Won
Ewha Womans University
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Abstract

Plasticity in salt tolerance can be crucial for successful biological invasions of novel habitats by marine gastropods. The intertidal snail Batillaria attramentaria, which is native to East Asia but invaded the western shores of North America from Japan eighty years ago, provides an opportunity to examine how environmental salinity may shape behavioral and morphological traits. In this study, we compared the movement distance of four B. attramentaria populations from native (Korea and Japan) and introduced (USA) habitats under various salinity levels (13, 23, 33, and 43 PSU) during 30 days of exposure in the lab. We sequenced a partial mitochondrial CO1 gene to infer phylogenetic relationships among populations and confirmed two divergent mitochondrial lineages constituting our sample sets. Using a statistic model-selection approach, we investigated the effects of geographic distribution and genetic composition on locomotor performance in response to salt stress. Snails exposed to acute low salinity (13 PSU) reduced their locomotion and were unable to perform at their normal level (the moving pace of snails exposed to 33 PSU). We did not detect any meaningful differences in locomotor response to salt stress between the two genetic lineages or between the native snails (Japan versus Korea populations), but we found significant locomotor differences between the native and introduced groups (Japan or Korea versus the USA). We suggest that the greater magnitude of tidal salinity fluctuation at the USA location may have influenced locomotor responses to salt stress in introduced snails.
29 Jul 2020Submitted to Ecology and Evolution
30 Jul 2020Submission Checks Completed
30 Jul 2020Assigned to Editor
13 Aug 2020Reviewer(s) Assigned
13 Sep 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
14 Sep 2020Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
27 Oct 20201st Revision Received
28 Oct 2020Submission Checks Completed
28 Oct 2020Assigned to Editor
28 Oct 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
02 Nov 2020Editorial Decision: Accept
Jan 2021Published in Ecology and Evolution volume 11 issue 1 on pages 458-470. 10.1002/ece3.7065