EVOLUTION OF BROAD AND SPECIFIC COMPETITIVE ABILITY IN NOVEL VERSUS FAMILIAR ENVIRONMENTS IN DROSOPHILA SPECIES

Abstract

We used nine pairs of competing Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans populations to test three hypotheses. (1) Weaker competitors undergo greater evolutionary increases in competitive ability, compared with stronger ones. (2) Increased competitive ability against a specific competitor population causes a correlated increase in competitive ability against other competitor populations. (3) In a novel environment, adaptation to the abiotic environment contributes more to competitive ability than adaptation to the competitor population. After 11 generations of competition, initially weaker competitor populations showed relatively greater increases in competitive ability. Broad and specific competitive abilities, the latter being specific to a particular competitor population, were positively correlated in both familiar and novel environments. Adaptation to the abiotic environment seemed to be a more important component of competitive ability in the novel environments. We conclude that in geographically structured species, biotic and abiotic factors affecting the evolution of competitive ability may interact to help create a mosaic of outcomes that can affect the evolutionary dynamics of the interaction over the range of the competing species.

Keywords: Broad competitive ability; Drosophila; competition; specific competitive ability.