The competition diallel and the exploitation and interference components of larval competition in Drosophila melanogaster

Miranda, Joachim R. de; Hemmat, Mortaza; Eggleston, Paul

doi:10.1038/hdy.1991.42

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The effects of the two species are at least partially independent, as long as there is some interference component to the competition. This is usually the case, even in seemingly simple systems (Arthur 1987), and is certainly true for both intraspecific and interspecific competition in many Drosophila species Brncic 1974, 1975;De Miranda et al 1991).…”

Section: Measures Of Competitive Abilitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Alternative Routes to the Evolution of Competitive Ability in Two Competing Species of Drosophila

Joshi¹,

Thompson²

1995

Evolution

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The evolution of components of interspecific competitive ability was examined in three different environments for three replicate pairs of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans populations. Populations evolved enhanced competitive ability in three ways: (1) increased effectiveness at reducing the numbers of the competitor species; (2) increased resistance to the inhibitory effects of the competitor species; or (3) a combination of the two. Considerable variation was seen in the evolutionary outcomes of competition among environments, and also among replicate populations within environments. Significant replicate-by-environment interactions were also observed. The results suggest that the evolutionary routes to the evolution of enhanced competitive abilities can potentially differ among subdivided populations, creating a geographic mosaic of outcomes.

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Section: Measures Of Competitive Abilitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Alternative Routes to the Evolution of Competitive Ability in Two Competing Species of Drosophila

Joshi¹,

Thompson²

1995

Evolution

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“…This species has been one of the main model organisms for studies of developmental genetics (21) and has been extensively studied from a QG perspective (1). Despite this enormous body of work, no previous investigation has directly examined the contribution of IGEs to genetic architecture, although previous work suggests that they should play an important role in trait expression (22)(23)(24)(25). Because flies develop under high densities in an environment largely created by conspecifics [through the excretion of biotic residues (24), egestion of digestive enzymes (26), mechanical processing of medium, and direct competition for nutrients], there is considerable opportunity for IGEs to affect development.…”

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confidence: 99%

Genetic architecture and evolutionary constraint when the environment contains genes

Wolf

2003

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

146

177

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The environment provided by conspecifics is often the most important component of the environment experienced by individuals, frequently having profound effects on fitness and trait expression. Although these social effects on fitness and trait expression may appear to be purely environmental, they differ from other sorts of environmental influences, because they can have a genetic basis and thus can contribute to evolution. Theory has shown that these effects modify the definition of genetic architecture by making the phenotype the property of the genotypes of multiple individuals and alter evolutionary dynamics by introducing additional heritable components contributing to trait evolution. These effects suggest that genetic and evolutionary analyses of traits influenced by social environments must incorporate the genetic components of variation contributed by these environments. However, empirical studies incorporating these effects are generally lacking. In this paper, I quantify the contribution of genetically based environmental effects arising from social interactions during group rearing to the quantitative genetics of body size in Drosophila melanogaster. The results demonstrate that the genetic architecture of body size contains an important component of variation contributed by the social environment, which is hidden to ordinary genetic analyses and opposes the direct effects of genes on body-size development within a population. Using a model of trait evolution, I show that these effects significantly alter evolutionary predictions by providing hidden constraints on phenotypic evolution. The importance of relatedness of interactants and the potential impact of kin selection on the evolution of body size are also examined. Since its origin, one of the major goals of genetics has been to understand the relative contribution of heritable and environmental factors to trait variation. Quantitative genetic (QG) methods have been developed as the primary means to achieve this goal, generally with the ultimate goal of understanding the evolutionary potential of traits (1). QG analyses use statistical approaches that rely on hypothetical constructs, devised to reflect causative influences producing variation in traits (e.g., ref.2), to partition phenotypic variation into heritable components that contribute to trait evolution and nonheritable components that do not. The success of the QG approach for this purpose depends critically on the validity of the underlying model (3). Because of the primary interest in trait evolution, most analyses focus on the genetic components, casting environmental influences aside as sources of nonheritable random variation. However, in the case of the social environment (i.e., the environment provided by conspecifics), there can be a genetic component to the environment, because it is created by traits expressed by individuals. This genetic component of the environment blurs the distinction between genetic and environmental effects and thereby complicates the definition of genet...

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“…Thus, we find the surprising outcome that competition can lead to long‐term maintenance of heritable variation for traits under constant directional selection, but those traits may never show an actual evolutionary response to selection. We suggest that competition dependence of fitness‐related traits may be common in nature because of evidence for both genetic interactions for competitive success (e.g., Hemmat and Eggleston 1989; De Miranda et al 1991; Colegrave 1993) and condition‐dependent expression of traits (e.g., Bakker et al 1999; David et al 2000; Holzer et al 2003). However, empirical investigation is required to confirm this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The extent to which selection acts to remove linear components of dominance hierarchies (where a single allele wins), leaving nonlinear components, will determine how common such a scenario might be. There is evidence, both theoretical and empirical, the latter arising from research on competitive diallels (i.e., genotype‐by‐genotype competitive interactions), suggesting significant variation among genotypes to be nonadditive in the competitive environment (e.g., Pèrez‐Tomè and Toro 1982; Asmussen and Basnayake 1990; De Miranda et al 1991; Colegrave 1993; Bürger and Gimelfarb 2004). However, the degree to which such interactions are prevalent in natural populations remains an empirical problem and the generality of whether competitive hierarchies evolve to be transitive or nontransitive in nature is not well known.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Maintenance of Heritable Variation Through Social Competition

2008

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The paradoxical persistence of heritable variation for fitness-related traits is an evolutionary conundrum that remains a preeminent problem in evolutionary biology. Here we describe a simple mechanism in which social competition results in the evolutionary maintenance of heritable variation for fitness related traits. We demonstrate this mechanism using a genetic model with two primary assumptions: the expression of a trait depends upon success in social competition for limited resources; and competitive success of a genotype depends on the genotypes that it competes against. We find that such social competition generates heritable (additive) genetic variation for "competition-dependent" traits. This heritable variation is not eroded by continuous directional selection because, rather than leading to fixation of favored alleles, selection leads instead to allele frequency cycling due to the concerted coevolution of the social environment with the effects of alleles. Our results provide a mechanism for the maintenance of heritable variation in natural populations and suggest an area for research into the importance of competition in the genetic architecture of fitness related traits.

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The competition diallel and the exploitation and interference components of larval competition in Drosophila melanogaster

Cited by 11 publications

References 46 publications

Alternative Routes to the Evolution of Competitive Ability in Two Competing Species of Drosophila

Alternative Routes to the Evolution of Competitive Ability in Two Competing Species of Drosophila

Genetic architecture and evolutionary constraint when the environment contains genes

The Maintenance of Heritable Variation Through Social Competition

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