Five questions on ecological speciation addressed with individual-based simulations
Authored by X Thibert-Plante, A P Hendry
Date Published: 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01627.x
Sponsors:
National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
We use an individual-based simulation model to investigate factors
influencing progress toward ecological speciation. We find that
environmental differences can quickly lead to the evolution of
substantial reproductive barriers between a population colonizing a new
environment and the ancestral population in the old environment. Natural
selection against immigrants and hybrids was a major contributor to this
isolation, but the evolution of sexual preference was also important.
Increasing dispersal had both positive and negative effects on
population size in the new environment and had positive effects on
natural selection against immigrants and hybrids. Genetic divergence at
unlinked, neutral genetic markers was low, except when environmental
differences were large and sexual preference was present. Our results
highlight the importance of divergent selection and adaptive divergence
for ecological speciation. At the same time, they reveal several
interesting nonlinearities in interactions between environmental
differences, sexual preference, dispersal and population size.
Tags
sexual selection
sympatric speciation
Mathematical-models
Natural-selection
Gene flow
Local adaptation
Host-plant adaptation
Reproductive
isolation
Quantitative traits
Adaptive divergence