Observing character displacement from process to pattern in a novel vertebrate community.

ABSTRACT: Ecological character displacement, whereby shifts in resource use in the presence of competing species leads to adaptive evolutionary divergence, is widely considered an important process in community assembly and adaptive radiation. However, most evidence for character displacement has been inferred from macro-scale geographic or phylogenetic patterns; direct tests of the underlying hypothesis of divergent natural selection driving character displacement in the wild are rare. Here, we document character displacement between two ecologically similar lizards (Anolis sagrei and A. cristatellus) experiencing novel contact. We identify directional selection during the incipient stages of sympatry in a new community that corresponds to repeated trait divergence across multiple established sympa

SUBMITTER: Stroud JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11564967 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature