Premium
ADAPTIVE DYNAMICS OF DORMANCY DURATION VARIABILITY: EVOLUTIONARY TRADE‐OFF AND PRIORITY EFFECT LEAD TO SUBOPTIMAL ADAPTATION
Author(s) -
Gourbière Sébastien,
Menu Fréderic
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00731.x
Subject(s) - biology , diapause , dormancy , ecology , evolutionary dynamics , population , adaptation (eye) , genetic variability , evolutionary biology , demography , genetics , larva , genotype , botany , germination , gene , neuroscience , sociology
Many plants, insects, and crustaceans show within‐population variability in dormancy length. The question of whether such variability corresponds to a genetic polymorphism of pure strategies or a mixed bet‐hedging strategy, and how the level of phenotypic variability can evolve remain unknown for most species. Using an eco‐genetic model rooted in a 25‐year ecological field study of a Chestnut weevil, Curculio elephas , we show that its diapause‐duration variability is more likely to have evolved by the spread of a bet‐hedging strategy than by the establishment of a genetic polymorphism. Investigating further the adaptive dynamics of diapause‐duration variability, we find two unanticipated patterns of general interest. First, there is a trade‐off between the ability of bet‐hedging strategies to persist on an ecological time scale and their ability to invade. The optimal strategy (in terms of persistence) cannot invade, whereas suboptimal bet‐hedgers are good invaders. Second, we describe an original evolutionary dynamics where each bet‐hedging strategy (defined by its rate of prolonged diapause) resists invasion by all others, so that the first type of bet‐hedger to appear persists on an evolutionary time scale. Such “evolutionary priority effect” could drive the evolution of maladapted levels of diapause‐duration variability.