Are genes faster than crabs?

Abstract

Biological invasions offer unique opportunities to investigate evolutionary dynamics at the peripheries of expanding pop-ulations. Here, we examine genetic patterns associated with admixture between two distinct invasive lineages of the European green crab, Carcinus maenasL., independently introduced to the northwest Atlantic. Previous investigations based on mito-chondrial DNA sequences demonstrated that larval dispersal driven by advective currents could explain observed southward displacement of an admixture zone between the two invasions.