The Effect of Varying the Initial Numbers on the Outcome of Competition Between Two Tribolium Species

Leslie, Paula; Park, Thomas; Mertz, David B.

doi:10.2307/2708

Cited by 71 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, populations are generally not isolated, and interactions within a community context may also reduce population sizes to levels where demographic stochasticity becomes important. As a single example, Leslie et al (1968) found that Tribolium castaneum generally was competitively superior to T. confusum. However, in 4 of 40 competition trials, adult T. castaneum were reduced to fewer than 10 individuals, from which they never recovered and finally went extinct.…”

Section: Population Synchronymentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of extinction in experimental populations

Griffen¹,

Drake

2008

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary 1.Population extinction is a fundamental ecological process. Recent experimental work has begun to test the large body of theory that predicts how demographic, genetic and environmental factors influence extinction risk. We review empirical studies of extinction conducted under controlled laboratory conditions. Our synthesis highlights four findings.First, extinction theory largely considers individual, isolated populations. However, species interactions frequently altered or even reversed the influence of environmental factors on population extinction as compared to single-species conditions, highlighting the need to integrate community ecology into population theory. 2. While most single-species studies qualitatively agree with theoretical predictions, studies are needed that quantitatively compare observed and predicted extinction rates. A quantitative understanding of extinction processes is needed to further advance theory and to predict population extinction resulting from human activities. 3. Many stresses leading to population extinction can be assuaged by migration between subpopulations. However, too much migration increases synchrony between subpopulations and thus increases extinction risk. Research is needed to determine how to strike a balance that maximizes the benefit of migration. 4. Results from laboratory experiments often conflict with field studies. Understanding these inconsistencies is crucial for extending extinction theory to natural populations.

show abstract

Section: Population Synchronymentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of extinction in experimental populations

Griffen¹,

Drake

2008

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, each species in this experiment benefited from allowing natal habitats to influence phenotypes of immigrants under different combinations of dispersal rate and landscape types. These carryover effects of natal habitats led to T. confusum dominating across some landscapes, including in high-quality habitat patches, in which it is usually an inferior competitor (62). When natal habitats were not allowed to influence the phenotypes of immigrants, one species alone, T. castaneum, had higher relative abundance across almost all landscapes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carryover effects drive competitive dominance in spatially structured environments

Allen

Rudolf

2016

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding how changes to the quality of habitat patches affect the distribution of species across the whole landscape is critical in our human-dominated world and changing climate. Although patterns of species' abundances across a landscape are clearly influenced by dispersal among habitats and local species interactions, little is known about how the identity and origin of dispersers affect these patterns. Because traits of individuals are altered by experiences in their natal habitat, differences in the natal habitat of dispersers can carry over when individuals disperse to new habitats and alter their fitness and interactions with other species. We manipulated the presence or absence of such carried-over natal habitat effects for up to eight generations to examine their influence on two interacting species across multiple dispersal rates and different habitat compositions. We found that experimentally accounting for the natal habitat of dispersers significantly influenced competitive outcomes at all spatial scales and increased total community biomass within a landscape. However, the direction and magnitude of the impact of natal habitat effects was dependent upon landscape type and dispersal rate. Interestingly, effects of natal habitats increased the difference between species performance across the landscape, suggesting that natal habitat effects could alter competitive interactions to promote spatial coexistence. Given that heterogeneity in habitat quality is ubiquitous in nature, natal habitat effects are likely important drivers of spatial community structure and could promote variation in species performance, which may help facilitate spatial coexistence. The results have important implications for conservation and invasive species management.carryover effects | natal habitat effect | competition | metacommunity | dispersal C ommunities do not exist in a vacuum; instead, they are connected to each other through dispersal of interacting species. Consequently, dispersal among different kinds of habitat patches is increasingly recognized as a key factor driving the dynamics and structure of communities from local to regional spatial scales (1-5). In classic models, the persistence and dynamics of populations within a patch are determined by two factors: the rate of dispersal between patches of habitat and the species fitness within each local patch (6-8). This view has persisted into metacommunity theory (multiple communities connected by dispersal of individuals between the patches of habitat they occur in) as well, where the influence of dispersers on community dynamics is generally considered only in terms of their numbers (i.e., dispersal rate) and habitat-specific performance (1, 9-11). Implicit in this case, and for most of spatial ecology, is that the interactions and population dynamics within a habitat are solely determined by the quality of that habitat. However, this approach ignores the often substantial variation in individual traits and fitness within and across habitats in a natural sys...

show abstract

“…There were valid reasons for Leslie et al (1968) to doubt that the exceptional competitive system represented a genuine exception to the CEP. First, the series B experiments provided no replication of the previous result, but rather verified the CEP, which casts doubt on the idea that the exceptional system was a genuine exception to the CEP.…”

Section: The Cep As a Strict Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study by Leslie et al (1968) investigated the effect of varying the initial number of Tribolium species populations on the outcome of competition. This was deemed important, since previous studies suggested that T. castaneum would outcompete T. confusum in all of the competitive systems and under all initial and boundary conditions, owing to its ecological advantages over T. confusum.…”

Section: The Cep As a Strict Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We refer to the famous competition laboratory experiments with two phylogenetically and ecologically similar flour beetles of the genus Tribolium by Park and his colleagues (Leslie et al 1968). Park's (1948Park's ( , 1968 previous laboratory experiments showed that when populations of two flour beetles (T. confusum and T. castaneum) compete for a common limiting resource and when the initial and boundary conditions of the experimental competitive systems, such as the initial population number of the species, the amount of their common resource, and the level of infection by a common parasite (Adelina tribolii) were varied, it is not always possible to predict in advance which of the species will outcompete the other in a specific experimental setup. Moreover, the time required for the system to reach its competitive equilibrium, i.e., the extinction of one or another of the species, varied by almost an order of magnitude and often covaried with the variance of the initial and boundary conditions.…”

Section: The Cep As a Strict Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Exclusions, Explanations, and Exceptions: On the Causal and Lawlike Status of the Competitive Exclusion Principle

Raerinne¹,

Baedke

2015

Philosophy and Theory in Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The lawlike and explanatory status of ecologists' Competitive Exclusion Principle (CEP) is a debated topic. It has been argued that the CEP is a ceteris paribus law, a non-lawlike regularity riddled with exceptions, a tautology, a causal regularity, and so on. We argue that the CEP is an empirically respectful and testable strict law that is not riddled with genuine exceptions. Moreover, we argue that the CEP is not a causal explanans in explanations, because it is a coexistence law, not a causal law. Rather than being an explanans, the CEP acts as a contrastive principle sharpening causal explanations. These results contrast with previous analyses of the CEP by Eliot (2011) andWeber (1999), which are also discussed. As a more general conclusion, we suggest that accounts of causal explanation in biology have neglected some of the roles that non-causal laws play in restricting, sharpening, and facilitating causal explanations.

show abstract

The Effect of Varying the Initial Numbers on the Outcome of Competition Between Two Tribolium Species

Cited by 71 publications

References 8 publications

A review of extinction in experimental populations

A review of extinction in experimental populations

Carryover effects drive competitive dominance in spatially structured environments

Exclusions, Explanations, and Exceptions: On the Causal and Lawlike Status of the Competitive Exclusion Principle

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About