Intraspecific trait variation in the land snail Rumina decollata

Abstract

Gastropods make up a large part of the animal biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Ruminadecollata is a hermaphrodite land snail native to the Mediterranean area with a current extensivedistribution in Asia and America mainly due to anthropogenic introductions. In Argentina, it iscurrently inhabiting from Patagonia to the north of our country where it is established in regionswith extreme climatic characteristics (aridity and wide range of temperatures). Environmentalconditions exert a strong selection pressure on land snails, significantly modifying life history traitsand, consequently, their ability to colonize new habitats. We seek to understand how R. decollatamanages to establish itself in different ecosystems. The first step was to explore phenotypicvariation and its association with environmental rearing conditions, reproductive strategies, andpopulation origin. We compared fecundity rate, hatching time, juvenile survival, and individualgrowth between 1) wild-caught and first-generation lab-reared snails, 2) selfing and outcrossingindividuals, and 3) wild-caught individuals from native and non-native populations. Preliminaryresults indicated contrasting trait variability within each group. The next step is to obtain moregenerations of snails raised in common garden laboratory conditions to estimate heritability and toperform quantitative genetic analyses. Understanding what processes are driving trait variation isessential to determine the potential of this cosmopolitan species to increase its distribution ranges.