BioOne.org will be down briefly for maintenance on 17 December 2024 between 18:00-22:00 Pacific Time US. We apologize for any inconvenience.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 March 2009 Ecological Conditions Affect Evolutionary Trajectory in a Predator-Prey System
Romain Gallet, Thomas Tully, Margaret E. K. Evans
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

The arms race of adaptation and counter adaptation in predator-prey interactions is a fascinating evolutionary dynamic with many consequences, including local adaptation and the promotion or maintenance of diversity. Although such antagonistic coevolution is suspected to be widespread in nature, experimental documentation of the process remains scant, and we have little understanding of the impact of ecological conditions. Here, we present evidence of predator-prey coevolution in a long-term experiment involving the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and the prey Pseudomonas fluorescens, which has three morphs (SM, FS, and WS). Depending on experimentally applied disturbance regimes, the predator-prey system followed two distinct evolutionary trajectories, where the prey evolved to be either super-resistant to predation (SM morph) without counter-adaptation by the predator, or moderately resistant (FS morph), specialized to and coevolving with the predator. Although predation-resistant FS morphs suffer a cost of resistance, the evolution of extreme resistance to predation by the SM morph was apparently unconstrained by other traits (carrying capacity, growth rate). Thus we demonstrate empirically that ecological conditions can shape the evolutionary trajectory of a predator-prey system.

© 2009 The Society for the Study of Evolution
Romain Gallet, Thomas Tully, and Margaret E. K. Evans "Ecological Conditions Affect Evolutionary Trajectory in a Predator-Prey System," Evolution 63(3), 641-651, (1 March 2009). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00559.x
Received: 9 May 2008; Accepted: 1 September 2008; Published: 1 March 2009
JOURNAL ARTICLE
11 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
Antagonistic coevolution
Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus
disturbance
experimental evolution
Pseudomonas fluorescens
trade-off evolution
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top