Fachbereich 13 - Biologie
Institut für Evolution und Ökologie der Tiere
Evolutionsbiologie

The evolution of love darts in hermaphroditic land snails

This project investigates the evolution of one of the most striking examples of sexual conflict in hermaphrodites, the so-called shooting of love darts in land snails. For this purpose, the morphology of love darts and associated reproductive organs are characterised from a diversity of land-snails. The evolution of these structures is inferred by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny from ribosomal DNA sequences and subsequent comparison with the morphological features based on independent contrasts and principal component analysis. The results highlight that co-evolutionary arms races result from sexual conflict in hermaphrodites and play a key role in the evolution of hermaphroditic mating systems.

Drittmittelgeber:

Casimir-Ziegler-Stipendium der Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Beteiligte Wissenschaftler:

Dr. Joris Koene (Leiter), Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg

Veröffentlichungen:

Koene J, Schulenburg H (in prep) Shooting darts: sexual conflict drives co-evolutionary arms race in hermaphroditic land snails