Museum of Comparative Zoology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Science. 2018 Jun 1;360(6392):1017-1020. doi: 10.1126/science.aap9289.
Biologists have long debated the role of behavior in evolution, yet understanding of its role as a driver of adaptation is hampered by the scarcity of experimental studies of natural selection on behavior in nature. After showing that individual lizards vary consistently in risk-taking behaviors, we experimentally established populations on eight small islands either with or without , a major ground predator. We found that selection predictably favors different risk-taking behaviors under different treatments: Exploratory behavior is favored in the absence of predators, whereas avoidance of the ground is favored in their presence. On predator islands, selection on behavior is stronger than selection on morphology, whereas the opposite holds on islands without predators. Our field experiment demonstrates that selection can shape behavioral traits, paving the way toward adaptation to varying environmental contexts.
生物学家长期以来一直在争论行为在进化中的作用，但由于缺乏对自然界中行为的自然选择进行实验研究，因此对其作为适应驱动力的理解受到了阻碍。在表明个体蜥蜴在冒险行为上始终存在差异之后，我们在八个小岛上进行了实验，这些小岛要么有，要么没有主要的地面捕食者。我们发现，在不同的处理下，选择可预测地有利于不同的冒险行为：在没有捕食者的情况下，探索行为受到青睐，而在有捕食者的情况下，则避免地面。在有捕食者的岛屿上，行为选择比形态选择更强，而在没有捕食者的岛屿上则相反。我们的野外实验表明，选择可以塑造行为特征，为适应不断变化的环境背景铺平道路。
