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Mechanisms of Adaptation in a Predator-Prey Arms Race: TTX-Resistant Sodium Channels
Shana Geffeney,1Edmund D. Brodie Jr.,1Peter C. Ruben,1Edmund D. Brodie III2*
Populations of the garter snake Thamnophis
sirtalis have evolved geographically variable resistance to
tetrodotoxin (TTX)in a coevolutionary arms race with
their toxic prey, newts ofthe genus Taricha. Here, we
identify a physiological mechanism,the expression of
TTX-resistant sodium channels in skeletal muscle,responsible
for adaptive diversification in whole-animal resistance.Both
individual and population differences in the ability of skeletalmuscle
fibers to function in the presence of TTX correlate closelywith whole-animal measures of TTX resistance. Demonstration ofindividual variation in an essential physiological function responsiblefor the adaptive differences among populations is a step towardlinking
the selective consequences of coevolutionary interactionsto geographic
and phylogenetic patterns of diversity.
1 Department of Biology, Utah State University,
Logan, UT 84322, USA.
2 Department of Biology,
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
edb3{at}bio.indiana.edu
Variation in hatching success and egg production of Eurytemora affinis (Calanoida, Copepoda) from the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea, in relation to abundance and clonal differences of diatoms.
J. Ask, M. Reinikainen, and U. Bamstedt (2006)
J. Plankton Res.
28, 683-694
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Ecological functions of tetrodotoxin in a deadly polyclad flatworm.
R. Ritson-Williams, M. Yotsu-Yamashita, and V. J. Paul (2006)
PNAS
103, 3176-3179
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
