Effects of interspecific competition between Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus on their life history traits

Author(s):  
Daniyal Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Waqas Sumra ◽  
Rizwan Mustafa Shah ◽  
Mehboob Alam ◽  
Sarfraz Ali Shad ◽  
...  
2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1904) ◽  
pp. 20190591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alima Qureshi ◽  
Andrew Aldersley ◽  
Brian Hollis ◽  
Alongkot Ponlawat ◽  
Lauren J. Cator

Aedes aegypti is an important disease vector and a major target of reproductive control efforts. We manipulated the opportunity for sexual selection in populations of Ae . aegypti by controlling the number of males competing for a single female. Populations exposed to higher levels of male competition rapidly evolved higher male competitive mating success relative to populations evolved in the absence of competition, with an evolutionary response visible after only five generations. We also detected correlated evolution in other important mating and life-history traits, such as acoustic signalling, fecundity and body size. Our results indicate that there is ample segregating variation for determinants of male mating competitiveness in wild populations and that increased male mating success trades-off with other important life-history traits. The mating conditions imposed on laboratory-reared mosquitoes are likely a significant determinant of male mating success in populations destined for release.


2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (12) ◽  
pp. 1597-1608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harish Padmanabha ◽  
Fabio Correa ◽  
Mathieu Legros ◽  
H. Fredrick Nijhout ◽  
Cynthia Lord ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 220 ◽  
pp. 242-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie M. Prud'homme ◽  
Arnaud Chaumot ◽  
Eva Cassar ◽  
Jean-Philippe David ◽  
Stéphane Reynaud

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea J. Roth-Monzón ◽  
Mark C. Belk ◽  
J. Jaime Zúñiga-Vega ◽  
Jerald B. Johnson

Life-history traits are directly linked to fitness, and therefore, can be highly adaptive. Livebearers have been used as models for understanding the evolution of life histories due to their wide diversity in these traits. Several different selective pressures, including population density, predation, and resource levels, can shape life-history traits. However, these selective pressures are usually considered independently in livebearers and we lack a clear understanding of how they interact in shaping life-history evolution. Furthermore, selective pressures such as interspecific competition are rarely considered as drivers of life-history evolution in poeciliids. Here we test the simultaneous effects of several potential selective pressures on life-history traits in the livebearing fish Poeciliopsis prolifica. We employ a multi-model inference approach. We focus on four known agents of selection: resource availability, stream velocity, population density, and interspecific competition, and their effect on four life-history traits: reproductive allocation, superfetation, number of embryos, and individual embryo size. We found that models with population density and interspecific competition alone were strongly supported in our data and, hence, indicated that these two factors are the most important selective agents for most life-history traits, except for embryo size. When population density and interspecific competition increase there is an increase in each of the three life-history traits (reproductive allocation, superfetation, and number of embryos). For individual embryo size, we found that all single-agent models were equivalent and it was unclear which selective agent best explained variation. We also found that models that included population density and interspecific competition as direct effects were better supported than those that included them as indirect effects through their influence on resource availability. Our study underscores the importance of interspecific competitive interactions on shaping life-history traits and suggests that these interactions should be considered in future life-history studies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sampa Banerjee ◽  
Sushree Mohan ◽  
Soujita Pramanik ◽  
Soumyajit Banerjee ◽  
Goutam K. Saha ◽  
...  

AbstractCompetitive interactions between coexisting Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus have been implied as a crucial factor shaping life history traits and population characteristics. The overlap in resource requirements and similarities in the life history strategies of the two Aedes mosquitoes form a basis for competitive interactions. In the present study, the role of the food quality of the larval habitats in influencing the outcome of competition between Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus is evaluated to highlight food quality as a basis for asymmetric competitive outcomes. Instar I larvae of the two mosquitoes were reared using conspecifics or heterospecifics of constant size and equal ratio with four different food types: boiled rice, boiled pulses, a mixture of boiled rice and pulses, and fish food. Competitive interactions were evaluated using age at pupation (AP), pupal weight (PW), dry adult weight (AW) and wing length (WL) with respect to intra- and interspecific competition for the two sexes of each mosquito species. The results show that Ae. albopictus developed faster but achieved a smaller size compared to Ae. aegypti under interspecific competition conditions, the extent of the difference varying significantly with the food type. Given the variety of food resources available in the small container larval habitats, the results of the study imply that food quality may act differentially with respect to larval development and adult body size, depending on the conspecifics or heterospecifics and on the sex of the species concerned. The dominance of one species over the other may also be a consequence of the resource utilization pattern that varies in the larval habitats.


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