Environmental versus anthropogenic effects on population adaptive divergence in the freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis

Repeated pesticide contaminations of lentic freshwater systems located within agricultural landscapes may affect population evolution in non-target organisms, especially in species with a fully aquatic life cycle and low dispersal ability. The issue of evolutionary impact of pollutants is therefore conceptually important for ecotoxicologists. The impact of historical exposure to pesticides on genetic divergence was investigated in the freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis, using a set of 14 populations from contrasted environments in terms of pesticide and other anthropogenic pressures. The hypothesis of population adaptive divergence was tested on 11 life-history traits, using QST -FST comparisons. Despite strong neutral differentiation (mean FST = 0.291), five adult traits or parameters were found to be under divergent selection. Conversely, two early expressed traits showed a pattern consistent with uniform selection or trait canalization, and four adult traits appeared to evolve ne...