Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2010 Aug 1;13(8):989-97. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01490.x. Epub 2010 May 26.
Adaptive variation in the traits determining ecological interactions can lead to evolution so rapid that ecological dynamics change course while in progress (i.e., 'eco-evolutionary dynamics'). However, little is known about how the qualitative properties of eco-evolutionary dynamics (e.g., cycling, equilibrium, etc.) are affected by the amount of heritable variation present. Here, we show that a change in the range of variation in a heritable prey defense trait determines what dynamics are observed in an experimental predator-prey system. We combine modelling and laboratory experiments to show that initial defense trait variation determines whether populations exhibit eco-evolutionary cycles in which heritable variation is maintained, or converge to an equilibrium at which the prey population becomes monomorphic. Our results show how small changes in the amount of adaptive genetic variance initially present can radically alter eco-evolutionary dynamics, and can ultimately determine whether heritable variation is maintained or lost.
决定生态相互作用的特征的适应性变化可以导致如此迅速的进化，以至于生态动力学在进行过程中改变方向（即“生态进化动力学”）。然而，人们对生态进化动力学的定性特性（例如循环、平衡等）如何受到现有遗传变异量的影响知之甚少。在这里，我们表明，可遗传的猎物防御特征的变化范围的变化决定了在实验性捕食者-猎物系统中观察到的动力学是什么。我们结合建模和实验室实验表明，初始防御特征的变化决定了种群是否表现出生态进化循环，其中遗传变异得以维持，或者收敛到猎物种群变得单态的平衡点。我们的结果表明，最初存在的适应性遗传方差的数量的微小变化可以从根本上改变生态进化动力学，并最终决定遗传变异是否得以维持或丧失。
