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POPULATION BIOLOGY OF AVENA. VIII. COLONIZATION EXPERIMENT AS A TEST OF THE ROLE OF NATURAL SELECTION IN POPULATION DIVERGENCE
Author(s) -
Jain S. K.,
Rai K. N.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
american journal of botany
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.218
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1537-2197
pISSN - 0002-9122
DOI - 10.1002/j.1537-2197.1980.tb07766.x
Subject(s) - biology , colonization , natural selection , avena , population , fecundity , selection (genetic algorithm) , natural population growth , ecology , biological dispersal , bay , divergence (linguistics) , demography , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science , civil engineering , engineering
Artificially founded colonies of Avena barbata were utilized in two experiments in order to examine the role of natural selection in the evolution of regional differentiation in Central California. One experiment involved a total of 41 colonies founded in three different areas and scored over a 10‐yr period; these colonies, started with known genotypes, showed that although both Valley and Bay region genotypes establish successful colonies, their relative survivorship and fecundity suggests weak selective forces consistent with those predicted from the observed patterns in natural populations. The second experiment involved two localities, representing two climatic regimes of temperature, in each of which ten colonies were started from identical seed sources. These colonies also showed relatively higher fitness of the genotypes matching with those sampled from the Valley and Coastal regions, respectively, again in line with their regional pattern of distribution. Colonization experiments appeared to be useful even as short‐term in situ tests of certain specific evolutionary hypotheses on the role and intensity of natural selection.