Effect of phenotypic variation on dogwhelk morphology during an eco-evolutionary field experiment

Although there is a growing body of work indicating that ecological and evolutionary processes can have reciprocal feedbacks on one another, few studies have tested these feedbacks in natural field settings at the community level. We tested the ecological consequences of selection on intra-population variation in dogwhelk drilling. We reared juvenile dogwhelks (Nucella canaliculata) on four early-life diet treatments (thin-shelled Mytilus trossulus, two treatments of M. californianus from two populations known to differ in adult shell thickness, and acorn barnacles) and then outplanted the dogwhelks to field cages to quantify the community effects of variation in drilling phenotype on mussel bed succession over a year. Changes in Nucella canaliculata morphology (change in length) were determined over the course of the experiment.