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55 results for “Interspecific interactions”

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Data from: Interspecific hybridisation and interaction with cultivars affect the genetic variation of Ulmus minor and U. glabra in Flanders

Interspecific hybridisation and gene flow from cultivated plants may have profound effects on the evolution of wild species. Considering the cultural history and past use of U. minor and U. glabra trees in Flanders (northern Belgium), we investigated the extent of human impact on the genetic variation of the remaining, supposedly indigenous elm populations. We therefore examined the rate of interspecific hybridisation, which is expected to be higher under human influence, the occurrence of clones within and among locations, the presence of cultivars and their possible offspring. Based on results produced using 385 Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphic (AFLP) markers, 46% of the 106 investigated Flemish elms appeared to be F1 hybrids or backcrosses to one of the parent species, while no F2 hybrids (F1 x F1 progeny) were found. Clonality was mainly found among U. minor and hybrids, which are more likely to form root suckers or sprouts as opposed to U. glabra. The majority of the studied locations (76% of the locations with multiple samples) showed evidence of clonal reproduction. Several, sometimes distant, locations shared a multilocus lineage. We also found indications of gene flow from cultivated elms into native species. It is conceivable that reproductive material has been moved around extensively, obscuring the natural genetic structure of the elm populations. The results help guide the Flemish elm genetic resources conservation program.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

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Data from: Interspecific interactions through 2 million years: are competitive outcomes predictable?

Ecological interactions affect the survival and reproduction of individuals. However, ecological interactions are notoriously difficult to measure in extinct populations, hindering our understanding of how the outcomes of interactions such as competition vary in time and influence long-term evolutionary changes. Here, the outcomes of spatial competition in a temporally continuous community over evolutionary timescales are presented for the first time. Our research domain is encrusting cheilostome bryozoans from the Wanganui Basin of New Zealand over a ca 2 Myr time period (Pleistocene to Recent). We find that a subset of species can be identified as consistent winners, and others as consistent losers, in the sense that they win or lose interspecific competitive encounters statistically more often than the null hypothesis of 50%. Most species do not improve or worsen in their competitive abilities through the 2 Myr period, but a minority of species are winners in some intervals and losers in others. We found that conspecifics tend to cluster spatially and interact more often than expected under a null hypothesis: most of these are stand-off interactions where the two colonies involved stopped growing at edges of encounter. Counterintuitively, competitive ability has no bearing on ecological dominance.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

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"Chancing on a spectacle:" co-occurring animal migrations and interspecific interactions

Migrations of diverse wildlife species often converge in space and time, with their journeys shaped by similar forces (i.e., geographic barriers and seasonal resources and conditions); we term this "co-migration." Supporting this, recent studies have elucidated co-migrations and seasonal patterns that govern the location and timing of multiple species' journeys. Beyond their significance as natural wonders, species with overlapping migrations may interact ecologically, with potential effects on population and community dynamics. Direct and indirect ecological interactions including predation and competition between migrant species remain poorly understood, in part because migration is the least-studied phase of animals' annual cycles. To address this gap, we conducted a literature review to examine whether animal migration studies incorporate multiple species and to what extent they investigate interspecific interactions between co-migrants. Following a key word search, we read all migration research papers in 23 relevant peer-reviewed journals during 2008-2017. Thirty percent of animal migration papers reported two or more species with coinciding migrations, suggesting that co-migrations are common, although few studies investigated or discussed these mixed-species migrations further. Synthesizing those that did explore this phenomenon, we present examples and describe five types of ecological interactions between migrating species, including predator-prey, host-parasite, and commensal relationships. Deepening ecological knowledge of interspecific interactions among migratory animal communities will enhance understanding of the drivers of migration and could improve predictions about wildlife responses to global change. Further research focused on multi-species migrations could also inform conservation efforts for migratory animal populations, many of which are declining or shifting, with unexplored consequences for other co-migratory species.

opencc-zeroMar 2020View details →

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Data from: Interspecific dominance via vocal interactions mediates altitudinal zonation in Neotropical singing mice

Interspecific aggression between ecologically similar species may influence geographic limits by mediating competitive exclusion at the range edge. Advertisement signals that mediate competitive interactions within species may also provide social information that contributes to behavioral dominance and spatial segregation among species. We studied the mechanisms underlying altitudinal range limits in Neotropical singing mice (Scotinomys), a genus of muroid rodent in which males vocalize to repel rivals and attract mates. We first delineated replacement zones and described temperature regimes on three mountains in Costa Rica and Panama where Chiriquí singing mice (S. xerampelinus) abruptly replace Alston's singing mice (S. teguina). Next, we conducted interspecific behavioral trials and reciprocal removal experiments to examine if interspecific aggression mediated species replacement. Finally, we performed reciprocal playback experiments to investigate whether response to song matched competitive interactions. Behavioral trials and removal experiments suggest that S. xerampelinus is behaviorally dominant and excludes S. teguina from higher, cooler altitudes. Playback experiments indicate that subordinate S. teguina is silenced and repelled by heterospecific song, whereas S. xerampelinus responded to heterospecifics with approach and song rates comparable to responses to conspecifics. Thus, interspecific communication reflects underlying dominance and suggests that acoustic signaling contributes to altitudinal zonation of ecologically similar congeners. Our findings implicate the use of social information in structuring spatial distributions of animal communities across landscapes and provide insight into how large-scale patterns are generated by individual interactions.

opencc-zeroDec 2012View details →

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Data from: Do intraspecific or interspecific interactions determine responses to predators feeding on a shared size-structured prey community?

1. Coexistence of predators that share the same prey is common. This is still the case in size structured predator communities where predators consume prey species of different sizes (interspecific prey responses) or consume different size classes of the same species of prey (intraspecific prey responses). 2. A mechanism has recently been proposed to explain coexistence between predators that differ in size but share the same prey species, emergent facilitation, which is dependent on strong intraspecific responses from one or more prey species. Under emergent facilitation predators can depend on each other for invasion, persistence or success in a size structured prey community. 3. Experimental evidence for intraspecific size-structured responses in prey populations remain rare and further questions remain about direct interactions between predators that could prevent or limit any positive effects between predators (e.g. intraguild predation). 4. Here we provide a community wide experiment on emergent facilitation including natural predators. We investigate both the direct interaction between two predators that differ in body size (fish vs. invertebrate predator) and the indirect interaction between them via their shared prey community (zooplankton). 5. Our evidence supports the most likely expectation of interactions between differently sized predators, that intraguild predation rates are high and interspecific interactions in the shared prey community dominate the response to predation (i.e. predator-mediated competition). The question of whether emergent facilitation occurs frequently in nature requires more empirical and theoretical attention, specifically to address the likelihood that its pre-conditions may co-occur with high rates of intraguild predation.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

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Data from: Functional dissimilarity, not phylogenetic relatedness, determines interspecific interactions among plants in the Tibetan alpine meadows

The hypotheses suggesting that the nature and strength of species interactions should be determined by phylogenetic relatedness have important implications for the understanding of community structure. However, to date, there is limited empirical evidence to support them. At least two basic conditions need to be met in order to expect species interactions to be determined by evolutionary relatedness: a phylogenetic signal in the traits involved in the interactions and changes in the interactions as species are more ecologically similar. Here, we report results of a removal experiment in the Chinese Tibetan plateau in which we directly assessed if the nature and/or strength of interactions among twelve alpine meadow plant species were influenced by their phylogenetic relatedness and/or their functional dissimilarity. For each plant species, we compared its biomass production when grown alone to its biomass in presence of another species and used it as a measure of species interactions. Competition between pairs of species was more frequent than facilitation, with 60% of interactions resulting in plants producing less biomass when a second species was present. We found no effect of phylogenetic relatedness on the prevalence or intensity of competition or facilitation, presumably as none of the studied traits showed phylogenetic signal. Functional dissimilarity based on maximum plant height alone was the best predictor of both the prevalence and strength of competition and facilitation, followed by functional dissimilarity using all five functional traits. Our results pinpoint the limited capacity of phylogenetic relatedness as predictor of species interactions; underlining the limitations of using phylogenetic dispersion patterns to infer mechanisms of community assembly. On the contrary, when the right functional traits are used, functional dissimilarity among species can predict both the nature and strength of their interactions; accentuating the relevance of trait-based approaches in community ecology research.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

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Data from: Interspecific interactions and learning variability jointly drive geographic differences in mate preferences

Co-occurrence of closely related species can cause behavioral interference in mating and increase hybridization risk. Theoretically, this could lead to the evolution of more species-specific mate preferences and sexual signaling traits. Alternatively, females can learn to reject heterospecific males, to avoid male sexual interference from closely related species. Such learned mate discrimination could also affect conspecific mate preferences if females generalize from between species differences to prefer more species-specific mating signals. Female damselflies of the banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) learn to reject heterospecific males of the beautiful demoiselle (C. virgo) through direct premating interactions. These two species co-occur in a geographic mosaic of sympatric and microallopatric populations. Whereas C. virgo males have fully melanized wings, male C. splendens wings are partly melanized. We show that C. splendens females in sympatry with C. virgo prefer smaller male wing patches in conspecific males after learning to reject heterospecific males. In contrast, allopatric C. splendens females with experimentally induced experience with C. virgo males did not discriminate against larger male wing patches. Wing patch size might indicate conspecific male quality in allopatry. Co-occurrence with C. virgo therefore causes females to prefer conspecific male traits that are more species specific, contributing to population divergence and geographic variation in female mate preferences.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

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Script and data used in: A lot of convergence, a bit of divergence: environment and interspecific interactions shape body color patterns in Lissotriton newts

Coexistence with related species poses evolutionary challenges to which populations may react in diverse ways. When exposed to similar environments, sympatric populations of two species may adopt similar phenotypic trait values. However, selection may also favor trait divergence as a way to reduce competition for resources or mates. The characteristics of external body parts, such as coloration and external morphology, are involved to varying degrees in intraspecific signaling as well as in the adaptation to the environment, and consequently may be diversely affected by interspecific interactions in sympatry. Here, we studied the effect of sympatry on various color and morphological traits in males and females of two related newt species Lissotriton helveticus and L. vulgaris. Importantly, we did not only estimate how raw trait differences between species respond to sympatry, but also the marginal responses after controlling for environmental variation. We found that dorsal and caudal coloration converged in sympatry, likely reflecting their role in adaptation to local environments, especially concealment from predators. In contrast, aspects of male and female ventral coloration, which harbours sexual signals in both species, diverged in sympatry. This divergence may reduce opportunities for interspecific sexual interactions and the associated loss of energy, suggesting reproductive character displacement (RCD). Our study emphasizes the contrasting patterns of traits involved in different functions and calls for the need to consider this diversity in evolutionary studies.

opencc-zeroJan 2022View details →

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Data for: Interspecific interactions between gray woolly monkeys (Lagothrix lagotricha cana) and nine syntopic primate species

Assemblage structure and acquisition of high-value resources will usually be affected by changes in resource availability and differential competitive abilities of assemblage members. In fragmented habitats where carrying capacity limits are exceeded due to high population densities and biomass, interspecific interactions can be expected to occur at a high frequency, potentially turning into an important cost for coexistence. We studied assemblage- and guild-level patterns of interspecific interactions in two highly diverse isolated primate assemblages in southern Amazonia. Specifically, we assessed the effects of temporal variation in fruit availability on the rates of interspecific interactions between gray woolly monkeys (Lagothrix lagotricha cana), one of the largest tree-dwelling mammals of the Amazon forests, and nine syntopic primate species. This dataset includes the rates of interactions at the guild-level and assemblage-level, as well as the rates of interactions with each individual species. Additionally, the dataset provides estimations of fruit availability at both study sites.

opencc-zeroMay 2023View details →

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