Spatial and temporal population genetic structure of four northeastern Pacific littorinid gastropods: the effect of mode of larval development on variation at one mitochondrial and two nuclear DNA markers.

We investigated the effect of development mode on the spatial and temporal population genetic structure of four littorinid gastropod species. Snails were collected from the same three sites on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada in 1997 and again in 2007. DNA sequences were obtained for one mitochondrial gene, cytochrome b (Cyt b), and for up to two nuclear genes, heat shock cognate 70 (HSC70) and aminopeptidase N intron (APN54). We found that the mean level of genetic diversity and long-term effective population sizes (N(e)) were significantly greater for two species, Littorina scutulata and L. plena, that had a planktotrophic larval stage than for two species, Littorina sitkana and L. subrotundata, that laid benthic egg masses which hatched directly into crawl-away juveniles. Predictably, two poorly dispersing species, L. sitkana and L. subrotundata, showed significant spatial genetic structure at an 11- to 65-km geographical scale that was not observed in the two planktotrophic species. Conversely, the two planktotrophic species had more temporal genetic structure over a 10-year interval than did the two direct-developing species and showed highly significant temporal structure for spatially pooled samples. The greater temporal genetic variation of the two planktotrophic species may have been caused by their high fecundity, high larval dispersal, and low but spatially correlated early survivorship. The sweepstakes-like reproductive success of the planktotrophic species could allow a few related females to populate hundreds of kilometres of coastline and may explain their substantially larger temporal genetic variance but lower spatial genetic variance relative to the direct-developing species.