Trait exaggeration through sexual selection will tale place alongside other changes in phenotype. Exaggerated morphology might be compensated by parallel changes in traits that support, enhance or facilitate exaggeration: 'secondary sexual trait compensation' (SSTC). Alternatively, exaggeration might be realized at the expense of other traits through morphological trade-offs. For the most part,...

BACKGROUND Trematodes are a diverse group of endoparasites which require molluscan and vertebrate animals as intermediate and definitive hosts in their life cycle. The present study was carried out to determine the diversity and geographic distribution of infection with trematodes'cercariae in the snail Lymnaea gedrosiana from north-west Iran. METHODS A total number of 6759 Lymnaeidae snails ...

We present here a spatial and temporal population genetic survey of a common freshwater snail, also a predominantly selfing species, Lymnaea truncatula. The rate of genetic diversity loss was quantified by estimating the effective size (Ne) of the snail populations, using two different methods. A temporal survey allowed estimation of a variance effective size of the populations, and a spatial s...

Laboratory-reared Lymnaea are capable of detecting and responding to the scent of a crayfish predator. The present investigation is a first attempt to characterize multiple stress-related behavioural responses resulting from predator detection and to depict the neurophysiological correlates of one of these illustrated behaviours. Snails respond to crayfish effluent (CE) by increasing the follow...

The role of endogenous cellular properties and network interactions due to electrotonic coupling were investigated in two bilateral populations of 2-7 peripheral neurones ('Peripheral Bursters') in the snail Lymnaea stagnalis. 1. These cells are endogenously capable of bursting. Their burst frequency does not depend on the level of steady membrane polarization. Short hyperpolarizing current pul...

In many mating systems female reproductive capacity is a limiting resource over which males will compete. As a consequence, males and females have usually different fitness optimization strategies which may give rise to sexual conflict. Since simultaneous hermaphrodites have, in theory, the option to mate as male or as female at any time, conflict will occur if partners insist in taking the sam...

Aerial respiratory behaviour in Lymnaea stagnalis was operantly conditioned using a procedure that results in long-term memory (LTM) persisting for 1 but not 3 days. By manipulating the snails' post-training environment, i.e. preventing Lymnaea from performing aerial respiratory behaviour, memory persistence was significantly extended. Memory retention, however, is only extended if snails are p...