Abstract

Darwin's Principle of Divergence explains sympatric speciation as gradual and directional. Contradicting evidence suggests that species' traits evolve saltationally. Here, we model coevolution in exploiter-victim systems. Victims (resource population) have heritable, mutable cue phenotypes with different levels of defense. Exploiters have heritable, mutable perceptual phenotypes. Our simulations reveal coevolution of victim mimicry and exploiter specialization in a saltational and reversible cycle. Evolution is gradual and directional only in the specialization phase of the cycle thereby implying that specialization itself is saltational in such systems. Once linked to assortative mating, exploiter specialization provides conditions for speciation.

Keywords

Trophic interaction; speciation; selection; model; perception

Published in

Evolutionary Bioinformatics
2006, Volume: 2, pages: 35-43
Publisher: LIBERTAS ACAD

UKÄ Subject classification

Evolutionary Biology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/117693430600200021

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/89757