Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30650. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030650. Epub 2012 Jan 24.
The rate of food consumption is a major factor affecting success in scramble competition for a limited amount of easy-to-find food. Accordingly, several studies report positive genetic correlations between larval competitive ability and feeding rate in Drosophila; both become enhanced in populations evolving under larval crowding. Here, we report the experimental evolution of enhanced competitive ability in populations of D. melanogaster previously maintained for 84 generations at low density on an extremely poor larval food. In contrast to previous studies, greater competitive ability was not associated with the evolution of higher feeding rate; if anything, the correlation between the two traits across lines tended to be negative. Thus, enhanced competitive ability may be favored by nutritional stress even when competition is not intense, and competitive ability may be decoupled from the rate of food consumption.
食物消耗率是影响在有限的易寻食物上进行竞争的关键因素。因此，一些研究报告指出，在果蝇中，幼虫的竞争能力和摄食率之间存在正的遗传相关性；在幼虫拥挤环境下进化的种群中，两者都会增强。在这里，我们报告了在极度贫瘠的幼虫食物上以低密度连续维持 84 代的黑腹果蝇种群的实验进化情况。与以前的研究不同，更强的竞争能力与更高的摄食率的进化无关；如果有的话，这两个特征在不同的进化线之间的相关性往往是负的。因此，即使竞争不激烈，营养压力也可能有利于增强竞争能力，而且竞争能力可能与食物消耗率脱钩。
