Université de Fribourg

Genetic estimates of population age in the water flea, Daphnia magna

Robinson, John D. ; Haag, Christoph R. ; Hall, David W. ; Pajunen, V. Ilmari ; Wares, John P.

In: Journal of Heredity, 2012, vol. 103, no. 6, p. 887-897

Genetic datasets can be used to date evolutionary events, even on recent time scales if sufficient data are available. We used statistics calculated from multilocus microsatellite datasets to estimate population ages in data generated through coalescent simulations and in samples from populations of known age in a metapopulation of Daphnia magna in Finland. Our simulation results show that age...

Université de Fribourg

Ecological differentiation between coexisting sexual and asexual strains of Daphnia pulex

Lehto, Mikko P. ; Haag, Christoph R.

In: Journal of Animal Ecology, 2010, vol. 79, no. 6, p. 1241–1250

1. The widespread occurrence of sexual reproduction indicates that the benefits of sex can overcome its costs relative to asexual reproduction. Many closely related sexual and asexual taxa have different geographic distributions suggesting that their relative fitness may depend on the environment. However, support for such ecological differentiation is mainly based on correlative evidence, with...

Université de Fribourg

Parasites promote host gene flow in a metapopulation

Altermatt, Florian ; Hottinger, Jürgen W. ; Ebert, Dieter

In: Evolutionary Ecology, 2007, vol. 21, no. 4, p. 561-575

Local adaptation is a powerful mechanism to maintain genetic diversity in subdivided populations. It counteracts the homogenizing effect of gene flow because immigrants have an inferior fitness in the new habitat. This picture may be reversed in host populations where parasites influence the success of immigrating hosts. Here we report two experiments testing whether parasite abundance and...

Université de Fribourg

Genotypic selection in Daphnia populations consisting of inbred sibships

Haag, Christoph ; Hebert, Dieter

In: Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2007, vol. 20, no. 3, p. 881–891

The genetic basis of fitness reduction associated with inbreeding is still poorly understood. Here we use associations between allozyme genotypes and fitness to investigate the genetic basis of inbreeding depression in experimental outdoor populations of the water flea, Daphnia magna. In Daphnia, a phase of clonal reproduction follows hatching from sexually produced resting eggs,...