Outside your shell: how temperature shapes genetic variation in two species of congeneric marine snails

Abstract

Intertidal organisms withstand extreme temperature fluctuations, and their ability to cope with this variation may affect their distributions across the seascape. Genetic variation and local environments likely interact to determine variation in thermal performance across intertidal species ranges, so characterizing the relationship between temperature variation and population structure is key to understanding the biology of marine invertebrates. Here, we use 2bRAD-sequencing to examine population genetic structure in two congeneric intertidal marine gastropods (Crepidula fornicata, C. plana), sampled from locations along a natural temperature gradient on the Northeast shores of the United States. These two species share similar life histories, yet C. plana exhibits a narrower distribution than C. fornicata. Our results demonstrate that both species show patterns of genetic divergence consistent with isolation by distance, though this pattern was only significant in C. fornicata. Both putatively selected and neutral loci displayed significant spatial structuring in C. fornicata; however, only putatively selected loci showed significant clustering in C. plana. When exploring whether temperature differences explained genetic differentiation, we found that 9-12% of genetic differentiation was explained by temperature variation in each species even when controlling for latitude and neutral population structure. Our results suggest that temperature shapes adaptive variation across the seascape in both Crepidula species and encourages further research to differentiate our results from models of neutral evolutionary drift.