Publication Date:
2012-06-22
Description:
Background: Antagonistic species interactions can lead to coevolutionary genotype or phenotypefrequency oscillations, with important implications for ecological and evolutionaryprocesses. However, direct empirical evidence of such oscillations is rare. The rarity ofobservations is generally attributed to inherent difficulties of ecological and evolutionarylong-term studies, to weak or absent interaction between species, or to the absence ofnegative frequency-dependence. Results: Here, we show that another factor - non-genetic inheritance, mediated for example byepigenetic mechanisms - can completely eliminate oscillations even if only a smallfraction of offspring are affected. We analytically derive the threshold value of thisfraction at which the dynamics change from oscillatory to stable, and investigate howselection, mutation and generation times differences between the two species affect thethreshold value. These results strongly suggest that the lack of phenotype frequencyoscillations should not be attributed to the lack of strong interactions between antagonisticspecies. Conclusions: Given increasing evidence of non-genetic effects on the outcomes of antagonistic speciesinteractions, we suggest that these effects should be incorporated into ecological andevolutionary models of interacting species.
Electronic ISSN:
1471-2148
Topics:
Biology
