Performance in a novel environment subject to ghost competition

A central tenet of the evolutionary theory of communities is that competition impacts evolutionary processes such as local adaptation. Species in a community exert a selection pressure on other species and may drive them to extinction. We know, however, very little about the influence of unsuccessfu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 8; p. e8931
Main Authors Bisschop, Karen, Mortier, Frederik, Bonte, Dries, Etienne, Rampal S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States PeerJ. Ltd 29.04.2020
PeerJ, Inc
PeerJ Inc
Subjects
Adaptation
Competition
Cucumbers
Ecology
Endangered & extinct species
Environmental literature
Evolution
Evolution (Biology)
Evolutionary Studies
Experimental evolution
Experiments
Extinction
Fecundity
Ghosts
Host plants
Interspecific competition
Intraspecific competition
Local adaptation
Novels
Population
Species extinction
Spider mites
Tetranychus urticae
Portugal
Spider mites
Interspecific competition
Intraspecific competition
Experimental evolution
Tetranychus urticae
Local adaptation
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:A central tenet of the evolutionary theory of communities is that competition impacts evolutionary processes such as local adaptation. Species in a community exert a selection pressure on other species and may drive them to extinction. We know, however, very little about the influence of unsuccessful or ghost species on the evolutionary dynamics within the community. Here we report the long-term influence of a ghost competitor on the performance of a more successful species using experimental evolution. We transferred the spider mite onto a novel host plant under initial presence or absence of a competing species, the congeneric mite . The competitor species, , unintentionally went extinct soon after the start of the experiment, but we nevertheless completed the experiment and found that the early competitive pressure of this ghost competitor positively affected the performance (i.e., fecundity) of the surviving species, . This effect on lasted for at least 25 generations. Our study suggests that early experienced selection pressures can exert a persistent evolutionary signal on species' performance in novel environments.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:2167-8359
2167-8359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.8931