What is it about?
We monitored virus evolution in experimental mixed-host microcosms in which we manipulated the strength of virus competition for hosts by altering the ratio of novel and ancestral hosts present in the microcosm. Our study experimentally distinguishes between ecological conditions that promote only the origin of novel phenotypes and conditions that promote additionally an increase in phenotypic diversity.
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Why is it important?
We used an experimental evolution approach to investigate one of the longest standing questions in evolutionary biology: the role of competition for resources in the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Our study belongs to a small group of experimental investigations of this question.
Perspectives
The novelty of this work lies in the observation that the long-term maintenance of a newly evolved resource polymorphism required that the ecological (i.e., between phenotype) dynamics occur on a similar timescale to the evolutionary (i.e., within phenotype) dynamics. The existing framework for investigating the consequences of this concordance of timescales––evolutionary rescue––considers how populations win the evolutionary race against extinction following an ecological shift [2,3]. Our data illustrate that the evolutionary rescue framework may be equally relevant for predicting how ancestral phenotypes win the evolutionary race against competitive exclusion following the emergence of a novel resource-use phenotype. To our knowledge this is the first application of the evolutionary rescue framework in this context.
Dr Christina L Burch
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Evolutionary rescue and the coexistence of generalist and specialist competitors: an experimental test, Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, December 2015, Royal Society Publishing,
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1932.
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