INBREEDING AND FITNESS IN THE FRESHWATER SNAIL LYMNAEA PEREGRA: AN EVALUATION OVER TWO GENERATIONS OF SELF-FERTILIZATION.

Inbreeding depression was estimated from an outbreeding population of the freshwater snail Lymnaea peregra, on the basis of two successive generations of enforced selling and outcrossing, and 70 maternal lineages. Outcrossing was analyzed under two treatments, groups of two and five individuals. The fitness parameters measured included fecundity, growth, and survival. In the first generation, we contrasted three treatments (selfers vs. paired outcrossers and group outcrossers). Very similar results were obtained between the two outcrossing treatments. A strong self-fertilization depression (which includes parental fecundity and progeny fitness) was detected in the selling treatment (about 90%). In the second generation, there was again marked evidence for self-fertilization depression, with the highest contributions coming from parental fecundity and progeny hatching rate. Our results suggest that the decreased parental fecundity is a consequence of the mating system in the previous generation, although the role of partial self-incompatibility and the copulation behavior could not be ruled out. Hatching rate and early survival data are suggestive of purging of lethal mutations. Significant variation in fitness among selfing lineages was found for most fitness traits. Our experimental design also allowed to test for interactions among fitness loci. Only one trait of the nine studied behaved as expected under synergistic interactions. However we cannot rule out some purging during the experiment, which could have biased results towards linearity. Inbreeding depression was also inferred from the change of inbreeding level across generations in the same population. We obtained a value similar to the experimental estimate.