SubBio Lab, Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 4;11(1):21682. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01249-8.
Predator-prey interactions are among the most important biotic interactions shaping ecological communities and driving the evolution of defensive traits. These interactions and their effects on species received little attention in extreme and remote environments, where possibilities for direct observations and experimental manipulation of the animals are limited. In this paper, we study such type of environment, namely caves of the Dinarides (Europe), combining spatial and phylogenetic methods. We focused on several species of Niphargus amphipods living in phreatic lakes, as some of them use the dorsal spines as putative morphological defensive traits. We predicted that these spines represent a defense strategy against the olm (Proteus anguinus), a top predator species in the subterranean waters. We tested for spatial overlap of the olm and Niphargus species and showed that spined species live in closer proximity to and co-occur more frequently with the olm than non-spined species. Modeling of the evolution of the spines onto Niphargus phylogeny implies coevolution of this trait in the presence of olm. We conclude that these spines likely evolved as defensive traits in a predator-prey arms race. Combining multiple analyses, we provide an example for a methodological framework to assess predator-prey interactions when in-situ or laboratory observations are not possible.
捕食者-猎物相互作用是塑造生态群落和推动防御特征进化的最重要的生物相互作用之一。这些相互作用及其对物种的影响在极端和偏远的环境中很少受到关注，在这些环境中，直接观察和对动物进行实验操作的可能性有限。在本文中，我们结合空间和系统发育方法研究了这种类型的环境，即迪纳拉山脉（欧洲）的洞穴。我们专注于生活在渗流湖中几种 Niphargus 十足目动物，因为它们中的一些物种使用背刺作为潜在的形态防御特征。我们预测这些刺是它们针对地下水域顶级捕食者欧鳗（Proteus anguinus）的防御策略。我们测试了欧鳗和 Niphargus 物种的空间重叠，并表明有刺物种比无刺物种更接近欧鳗，并且与欧鳗共存的频率更高。将刺的进化模型应用于 Niphargus 系统发育表明，在有欧鳗存在的情况下，这种特征是共同进化的。我们得出结论，这些刺可能是作为防御特征在捕食者-猎物军备竞赛中进化而来的。通过结合多种分析，我们提供了一个方法框架的示例，用于评估当无法进行现场或实验室观察时的捕食者-猎物相互作用。
