Abstract
CHARACTER divergence between sympatric, ecologically similar species has been attributed to selection which tends to increase the ecological difference between such species and to reduce the zone of their ecological overlap1. Evidence for this phenomenon is based solely on morphological Characters which are presumably controlled by a number of genetic factors. There is, however, no documentation of divergence between sympatric species at the allelic level. During the course of a study of the population genetics of the intertidal limpet Acmaea pelta, I discovered what seemed to be an effect of coexistence with congeners on the frequencies of allozymes at a leucine aminopeptidase (Lap) locus. Populations of this highly eurytopic species from habitats offering widely different algal food and physical conditions, had similar frequencies of Lap allozymes, except from habitats where the populations were mixed with large populations of another acmaeid species (unpublished results).
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MURPHY, P. Electrophoretic evidence that selection reduces ecological overlap in marine limpets. Nature 261, 228–230 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261228a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/261228a0
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