Natural selection fluctuates at an extremely fine spatial scale inside a wild population of snapdragon plants.

ABSTRACT: Spatial variation in natural selection is expected to shape phenotypic variation of wild populations and drive their evolution. Although evidence of phenotypic divergence across populations experiencing different selection regimes is abundant, investigations of intrapopulation variation in selection pressures remain rare. Fine-grained spatial environmental heterogeneity can be expected to influence selective forces within a wild population and thereby alter its fitness function by producing multiple fitness optima at a fine spatial scale. Here, we tested this hypothesis in a wild population of snapdragon plants living on an extremely small island in southern France (about 7500 m² ). We estimated the spline-based fitness function linking individuals' fitness and five morphologica

SUBMITTER: Marrot P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9291555 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature