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Predicting evolutionary responses to interspecific interference in the wild
Author(s) -
Grether Gregory F.,
Drury Jonathan P.,
Okamoto Kenichi W.,
McEachin Shawn,
Anderson Christopher N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/ele.13395
Subject(s) - character displacement , interspecific competition , damselfly , agonistic behaviour , sympatric speciation , biology , ecology , competition (biology) , aggression , mating , character (mathematics) , interference (communication) , sympatry , reproductive isolation , reproductive success , evolutionary biology , social psychology , psychology , odonata , demography , computer science , channel (broadcasting) , computer network , population , geometry , mathematics , sociology
Many interspecifically territorial species interfere with each other reproductively, and in some cases, aggression towards heterospecifics may be an adaptive response to interspecific mate competition. This hypothesis was recently formalised in an agonistic character displacement (ACD) model which predicts that species should evolve to defend territories against heterospecific rivals above a threshold level of reproductive interference. To test this prediction, we parameterised the model with field estimates of reproductive interference for 32 sympatric damselfly populations and ran evolutionary simulations. Asymmetries in reproductive interference made the outcome inherently unpredictable in some cases, but 80% of the model’s stable outcomes matched levels of heterospecific aggression in the field, significantly exceeding chance expectations. In addition to bolstering the evidence for ACD, this paper introduces a new, predictive approach to testing character displacement theory that, if applied to other systems, could help in resolving long‐standing questions about the importance of character displacement processes in nature.