Postcopulatory sexual selection is credited with driving rapid evolutionary diversification of reproductive traits and the formation of reproductive isolating barriers between species. This judgment, however, has largely been inferred rather than demonstrated due to general lack of knowledge about processes and traits underlying variation in competitive fertilization success. Here, we resolved processes determining sperm fate in twice-mated females, using transgenic Drosophila simulans and D. mauritiana populations with fluorescently-labeled sperm heads. Comparisons among these two species...

Background: Identifying traits that reproductively isolate species, and the selective forces underlying their divergence, is a central goal of evolutionary biology and speciation research. There is growing recognition that postcopulatory sexual selection, which can drive rapid diversification of interacting ejaculate and female reproductive tract traits that mediate sperm competition, may be an engine of speciation. Conspecific sperm precedence (CSP) is a taxonomically widespread form of reproductive isolation, but the selective causes and divergent traits responsible...

Begonia is one of the ten largest plant genera, with over 1500 species. This high species richness may in part be explained by weak species cohesion, which has allowed speciation by divergence in allopatry. In this study, we investigate species cohesion in the widespread Central American Begonia heracleifolia and Begonia nelumbiifolia, by genotyping populations at microsatellite loci. We then test for post-zygotic reproductive barriers using experimental crosses, and assess whether sterility barriers are related to...

Next generation sequencing methods, such as RNA-seq, have permitted the exploration of gene expression in a range of organisms which have been studied in ecological contexts but lack a sequenced genome. However, the efficacy and accuracy of RNA-seq annotation methods using reference genomes from related species have yet to be robustly characterised. Here we conduct a comprehensive power analysis employing RNA-seq data from Drosophila melanogaster in conjunction with 11 additional genomes from related Drosophila species...

Intuitively, interannual spring temperature variability (STV) should influence the leaf-out strategies of temperate zone woody species, with high winter chilling requirements in species from regions where spring warming varies greatly among years. We tested this hypothesis using experiments in 215 species and leaf-out monitoring in 1585 species from East Asia (EA), Europe (EU) and North America (NA). The results reveal that species from regions with high STV indeed have higher winter chilling requirements, and, when...

Morphological variation is the outward manifestation of development and provides fodder for adaptive evolution. Because of this contingency, evolution is often thought to be biased by developmental processes and functional interactions among structures, which are statistically detectable through forms of covariance among traits. This can take the form of substructures of integrated traits, termed modules, which together comprise patterns of variational modularity. While modularity is essential to an understanding of evolutionary potential, biologists currently have...

The evolution of reproductive isolation following hybridization is a major obstacle that may limit the prevalence of hybrid speciation among specific groups of organisms. Here we use a flea beetle system to offer a behavioral hypothesis for why there are so few examples of homoploid hybrid speciation among insects. Specifically, we examined cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) mating signals and mate choice decisions of Altica fragariae and A. viridicyanea to test whether the signals produced by hybrids...

Analyses of the evolution of cooperation often rely on two simplifying assumptions: (i) individuals interact equally frequently with all social network members and (ii) they accurately remember each partner's past cooperation or defection. Here, we examine how more realistic, skewed patterns of contact---in which individuals interact primarily with only a subset of their network's members---influence cooperation. In addition, we test whether skewed contact patterns can counteract the decrease in cooperation caused by memory errors (i.e.,...

Protected areas provide major benefits for humans in the form of ecosystem services, but landscape degradation by human activity at their edges may compromise their ecological functioning. Using multiple lines of evidence from 40 years of research in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, we find that such edge degradation has effectively “squeezed” wildlife into the core protected area and has altered the ecosystem’s dynamics even within this 40,000-square-kilometer ecosystem. This spatial cascade reduced resilience in the core...

Premise—Although polyploidy has been studied since the early 1900’s, fundamental aspects of polyploid ecology and evolution remain unexplored. In particular, surprisingly little is known about how newly formed polyploids (neopolyploids) become demographically established. Models predict that most polyploids should go extinct within the first few generations due to reproductive disadvantages associated with being the minority in a primarily diploid population (i.e., the minority cytotype principle), yet polyploidy is extremely common. Therefore, a key goal in...

Many savanna-dependent species in Africa including large herbivores and apex predators are at increasing risk of extinction. Achieving effective management of protected areas (PAs) in Africa where lions live will cost an estimated USD >$1-2 B/year in new funding. We explored the potential for fire management-based carbon-financing programs to fill this funding gap and benefit degrading savanna ecosystems. We demonstrated how introducing early dry season fire management programs could produce potential carbon revenues (PCR) from...

The ecological integrity of US national parks and other protected areas are under threat in the Anthropocene. For Yellowstone National Park (YNP), the impacts that global change has already had on the park’s capacity to sustain its large migratory herds of wild ungulates is incompletely understood. Here we examine how two understudied components of global change, the historical increase in atmospheric CO2 and the spread of non-native, invasive plant species, may have altered the capacity...

The extent of isolation among closely related sympatric plant species engaged in obligate pollination mutualisms depends on the fitness consequences of interspecies floral visitation. In figs (Ficus), interspecific gene flow may occur when pollinating wasps (Agaonidae) visit species other than their natal fig species. We studied reproductive isolation in a clade of six sympatric dioecious fig species in New Guinea. Microsatellite genotyping and Bayesian clustering analysis of the fig community indicated strong reproductive barriers among...

The search for predictions of species diversity across environmental gradients has challenged ecologists for decades. The humped-back model (HBM) suggests that plant diversity peaks at intermediate productivity; at low productivity few species can tolerate the environmental stresses, and at high productivity a few highly competitive species dominate. Over time the HBM has become increasingly controversial, and recent studies claim to have refuted it. Here, by using data from coordinated surveys conducted throughout grasslands worldwide and...

The physical and biotic environment is often considered the primary driver of functional variation in plant communities. Here, we examine the hypothesis that spatial isolation may also be an important driver of functional variation in plant communities where disturbance and dispersal limitation may prevent species from occupying all suitable habitats. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed the vascular plant composition of 30 islands in the Gulf of Maine, USA, and used available functional trait and...

Microsatellite genotypes for Prodoxus decipiensThis an excel file containing the individual ID, population, and microsatellite genotype for each moth sampled. There is also a sheet that provides the population names, host plant species from which each moth was sampled and GPS coordinates in various formats,DarwelletalDRYAD.xlsx

Non-native understorey woody species have been shown to extend leaf display and inhabit vacant phenological niches in early spring and late autumn when growing with native counterparts in temperate deciduous forests across the world. Despite the potential competitive advantages, extended leaf duration also subjects non-native species to possible hydraulic risks associated with maintaining leaves during periods of increased frost probability. It remains unclear how non-native species are able to maintain xylem function within this context....

Theory predicts that sperm competition will favour the production of larger ejaculates. However, because the benefits of greater reproductive investment are balanced by the costs of spermatogenesis, expenditure should depend on male physiology, mating rate and the relationship between additional investment and fertilization gains. In the yellow dung fly, Scathophagastercoraria, males adopt size-dependent alternative mating tactics that are associated with discrete ecological resources (foraging and oviposition substrates), although males switch between these environments throughout their...

1.Decades of grazing studies have identified a number of key plant and soil processes affected by large herbivores and how those grazer effects vary among different grassland types. However, there remains little mechanistic understanding about how the effects of grazers on plants and soils may be biogeochemically linked in regulating grassland processes. 2.Here we measured monthly plant and soil variables, including soil moisture, soil nitrogen (N) availability, plant biomass, shoot N concentration and plant production,...

The independent evolution of similar traits across multiple taxa provides some of the most compelling evidence of natural selection. Little is known, however, about the genetic basis of these convergent or parallel traits: are they mediated by identical or different mutations in the same genes, or unique mutations in different genes? Using a combination of candidate gene and reduced representation genomic sequencing approaches, we explore the genetic basis of and the evolutionary processes that mediate...

Reproductive timing is a key life history trait that impacts the pool of available mates, the environment experienced during flowering, and the expression of other traits through genetic covariation. Selection on phenology, and its consequences on other life history traits, has considerable implications in the context of ongoing climate change and shifting growing seasons. To test this, we grew field-collected seed from the wildflower Mimulus guttatus in a greenhouse to assess the standing genetic variation...

Data used in Lynn et al. 2022 at Ecography. The first dataset contains data from published studies used for the main analyses of the paper. The second dataset is from Lynn and Fridley 2019 in Journal of Plant Ecology used for figure 3. The abstract from the paper is: Herbivory rates have classically been hypothesized to decrease from the tropics towards higher latitudes because the more benign abiotic conditions in tropical systems foster greater ecosystem...

Dataset used to analyze the rates of evolution of mouthparts used for pollination and egg-laying morphology in yucca moths. Dataset includes the morphological measurements, the phylogenetic tree, and the species means for the evolutionary rates test.

Many songbirds are socially monogamous but genetically polyandrous, mating with individuals outside their pair bonds. Extra-pair paternity (EPP) varies within and across species, but reasons for this variation remain unclear. One possible source of variation is population genetic diversity, which has been shown in interspecific meta-analyses to correlate with EPP but which has limited support from intraspecific tests. Using eight populations of the genetically polyandrous red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), including an island population, we investigated...

In polyandrous mating systems, male fitness depends on success in premating, postcopulatory, and offspring viability episodes of selection. We tracked male success across all of these episodes simultaneously, using transgenic Drosophila melanogaster with ubiquitously expressed green fluorescent protein (i.e., GFP) in a series of competitive and non-competitive matings. This approach permitted us to track paternity-specific viability over all life stages and to distinguish true competitive fertilization success from differential early offspring viability. Relationships between episodes...