Evolutionary rescue and the coexistence of generalist and specialist competitors: an experimental test.

ABSTRACT: Competition for resources is thought to play a critical role in both the origins and maintenance of biodiversity. Although numerous laboratory evolution experiments have confirmed that competition can be a key driver of adaptive diversification, few have demonstrated its role in the maintenance of the resulting diversity. We investigate the conditions that favour the origin and maintenance of alternative generalist and specialist resource-use phenotypes within the same population. Previously, we confirmed that competition for hosts among φ6 bacteriophage in a mixed novel (non-permissive) and ancestral (permissive) host microcosm triggered the evolution of a generalist phenotype capable of infecting both hosts. However, because the newly evolved generalists tended to competitively exclude t

SUBMITTER: Bono LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4707747 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature