Test of local adaptation to biotic interactions and soil abiotic conditions in the ant-tended Chamaecrista fasciculata (Fabaceae)

ABSTRACTPredicting how species will respond to the rapid climatic changes predicted this century is an urgent task. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) use the current relationship between environmental variation and species’ abundances to predict the effect of future environmental change on their distributions. However, two common assumptions of SDMs are likely to be violated in many cases: (1) that the relationship of environment with abundance or fitness is constant throughout a species’ range and will remain so in future, and (2) that abiotic factors (e.g. temperature, humidity) determine species’ distributions. We test these assumptions by relating field abundance of the rainforest fruit fly Drosophila birchii to ecological change across gradients that include its low and high altitudinal limits. We then test how such ecological variation affects the fitness of 35 D. birchii families transplanted in 591 cages to sites along two altitudinal gradients, to determine whether genetic variation in fitness responses could facilitate future adaptation to environmental change. Overall, field abundance was highest at cooler, high altitude sites, and declined towards warmer, low altitude sites. By contrast, cage fitness (productivity) increased towards warmer, lower altitude sites, suggesting that biotic interactions (absent from cages) drive ecological limits at warmer margins. In addition, the relationship between environmental variation and abundance varied significantly among gradients, indicating divergence in ecological niche across the species’ range. However, there was no evidence for local adaptation within gradients, despite greater productivity of high altitude than low altitude populations when families were reared under laboratory conditions. Families also responded similarly to transplantation along gradients, providing no evidence for fitness trade-offs that would favour local adaptation. These findings highlight the importance of (1) measuring genetic variation of key traits under ecologically relevant conditions, and (2) considering the effect of biotic interactions when predicting species’ responses to environmental change.

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Parallel changes in gut microbiome composition and function in parallel local adaptation and speciation

10.1101/736843 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Diana J. Rennison ◽

Seth M. Rudman ◽

Dolph Schluter

Keyword(s):

Microbial Communities ◽

Local Adaptation ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Ecological Speciation ◽

Microbiome Composition ◽

Interacting Species ◽

Microbe Interactions ◽

Host Microbe Interactions ◽

And Function ◽

Host Evolution

AbstractThe processes of local adaptation and ecological speciation are often strongly shaped by biotic interactions such as competition and predation. One of the strongest lines of evidence that biotic interactions drive evolution comes from repeated divergence of lineages in association with repeated changes in the community of interacting species. Yet, relatively little is known about the repeatability of changes in gut microbial communities and their role in adaptation and divergence of host populations in nature. Here we utilize three cases of rapid, parallel adaptation and speciation in freshwater threespine stickleback to test for parallel changes in associated gut microbiomes. We find that features of the gut microbial communities have shifted repeatedly in the same direction in association with parallel divergence and speciation of stickleback hosts. These results suggest that changes to gut microbiomes can occur rapidly and predictably in conjunction with host evolution, and that host-microbe interactions might play an important role in host adaptation and diversification.

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Local Adaptation to Biotic Interactions: A Meta-analysis across Latitudes

The American Naturalist ◽

10.1086/707323 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 195 (3) ◽

pp. 395-411 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Anna L. Hargreaves ◽

Rachel M. Germain ◽

Megan Bontrager ◽

Joshua Persi ◽

Amy L. Angert

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Biotic Interactions

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Biotic interactions affect fitness across latitudes, but only drive local adaptation in the tropics

10.1101/575498 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Anna L. Hargreaves ◽

Rachel M. Germain ◽

Megan Bontrager ◽

Joshua Persi ◽

Amy L. Angert

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Environmental Heterogeneity ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Common Garden ◽

Spatiotemporal Scales ◽

Common Garden Experiments ◽

Experimental Treatments ◽

The Tropics ◽

Biotic Environment

AbstractLocal adaptation to broad-scale environmental heterogeneity can increase species’ distributions and diversification, but which environmental components commonly drive local adaptation— particularly the importance of biotic interactions—is unclear. Biotic interactions should drive local adaptation when they impose consistent divergent selection; if this is common we expect experiments to detect more frequent and stronger local adaptation when biotic interactions are left intact. We tested this hypothesis using a meta-analysis of common-garden experiments from 138 studies (149 taxa). Across studies, local adaptation was common and biotic interactions affected fitness. Nevertheless, local adaptation was neither more common nor stronger when biotic interactions were left intact, either between experimental treatments within studies (control vs. biotic interactions experimentally manipulated) or between studies that used natural vs. biotically-altered transplant environments. However, tropical studies, which comprised only 7% of our data, found strong local adaptation in intact environments but not when negative biotic interactions were ameliorated, suggesting that interactions frequently drive local adaptation in the tropics. Our results suggest that biotic interactions often fail to drive local adaptation even though they affect fitness, perhaps because the temperate-zone biotic environment is less predictable at the spatiotemporal scales required for local adaptation.

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Fagus sylvatica L. recruitment across a fragmented Mediterranean Landscape, importance of long distance effective dispersal, abiotic conditions and biotic interactions

Diversity and Distributions ◽

10.1111/j.1472-4642.2007.00404.x ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 799-807 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Georges Kunstler ◽

Wilfried Thuiller ◽

Thomas Curt ◽

Monique Bouchaud ◽

René Jouvie ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fagus Sylvatica ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Long Distance ◽

Abiotic Conditions ◽

Mediterranean Landscape ◽

Fagus Sylvatica L

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THE EFFECT OF NUCLEAR AND CYTOPLASMIC GENES ON FITNESS AND LOCAL ADAPTATION IN AN ANNUAL LEGUME, CHAMAECRISTA FASCICULATA

Evolution ◽

10.1111/j.1558-5646.1999.tb04558.x ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 53 (6) ◽

pp. 1734-1743 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Laura F. Galloway ◽

Charles B. Fenster

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Chamaecrista Fasciculata

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The Effect of Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Genes on Fitness and Local Adaptation in an Annual Legume, Chamaecrista fasciculata

Evolution ◽

10.2307/2640436 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 53 (6) ◽

pp. 1734 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Laura F. Galloway ◽

Charles B. Fenster

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Chamaecrista Fasciculata

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Adaptation to abiotic conditions drives local adaptation in bacteria and viruses coevolving in heterogeneous environments

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2015.0879 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 20150879 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Florien A. Gorter ◽

Pauline D. Scanlan ◽

Angus Buckling

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Heterogeneous Environments ◽

Abiotic Conditions ◽

Abiotic Environment ◽

Host Parasite Interactions ◽

Ecological Barriers ◽

Different Temperatures ◽

Abiotic Habitat ◽

Host Parasite ◽

Biotic Environment

Parasite local adaptation, the greater performance of parasites on their local compared with foreign hosts, has important consequences for the maintenance of diversity and epidemiology. While the abiotic environment may significantly affect local adaptation, most studies to date have failed either to incorporate the effects of the abiotic environment, or to separate them from those of the biotic environment. Here, we tease apart biotic and abiotic components of local adaptation using the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens and its viral parasite bacteriophage Φ2. We coevolved replicate populations of bacteria and phages at three different temperatures, and determined their performance against coevolutionary partners from the same and different temperatures. Crucially, we measured performance at different assay temperatures, which allowed us to disentangle adaptation to biotic and abiotic habitat components. Our results show that bacteria and phages are more resistant and infectious, respectively, at the temperature at which they previously coevolved, confirming that local adaptation to abiotic conditions can play a crucial role in determining parasite infectivity and host resistance. Our work underlines the need to assess host–parasite interactions across multiple relevant abiotic environments, and suggests that microbial adaption to local temperatures can create ecological barriers to dispersal across temperature gradients.

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Strengthened mutualistic adaptation between teosinte and its rhizosphere biota in cold climates

10.1101/2021.04.20.440703 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Anna M. O’Brien ◽

Ruairidh J.H. Sawers ◽

Jaime Gasca-Pineda ◽

Ivan Baxter ◽

Luis E. Eguiarte ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Local Adaptation ◽

Species Interactions ◽

Plant Traits ◽

Stress Gradient ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Common Garden ◽

List Type ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Leaves ◽

Elevational Variation

SummaryWhile abiotic environments consistently shape local adaptation, the strength of local adaptation to biotic interactions may vary more. One theory, COCO (CO-evolutionary Outcomes across Conditionality), predicts it may be strongest where species experience greater stress, because stress increases fitness impacts of species interactions. For example, in plant interactions with rhizosphere biota, positive outcomes increase with stress from low soil fertility, drought and cold.To investigate the influence of abiotic stress gradients on adaptation between plants and rhizosphere biota, we used a greenhouse common garden experiment recombining teosinte, Zea mays ssp. mexicana (wild relative of maize), and rhizosphere biota, collected across a stress gradient (elevational variation in temperature, precipitation, and nutrients).We found stronger local adaptation between teosinte and rhizosphere biota from colder, more stressful sites, as expected by COCO. However, biota from less stressful, warmer sites provided greater average benefits across teosinte populations. Links between plant traits and 20-element profiles of plant leaves explained fitness variation, persisted in the field, were influenced by both plants and biota, and largely reflected patterns of local adaptation.In sum, we uncovered greater local adaptation to biotic interactions in colder sites, and that both plants and rhizosphere biota affect the expression of plant phenotypes.

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