Parallel evolution and ecological selection: replicated character displacement in spadefoot toads.

ABSTRACT: Ecological character displacement--trait evolution stemming from selection to lessen resource competition between species--is most often inferred from a pattern in which species differ in resource-use traits in sympatry but not in allopatry, and in which sympatric populations within each species differ from conspecific allopatric populations. Yet, without information on population history, the presence of a divergent phenotype in multiple sympatric populations does not necessarily imply that there has been repeated evolution of character displacement. Instead, such a pattern may arise if there has been character displacement in a single ancestral population, followed by gene flow carrying the divergent phenotype into multiple, derived, sympatric populations. Here, we evaluate the likelihoo

SUBMITTER: Rice AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2821351 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature