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The symbiosis between marine bioluminescent Vibrio bacteria and the sepiolid squid Euprymna is a model for studying animal–bacterial Interactions. Vibrio symbionts native to particular Euprymna species are competitively dominant, capable of outcompeting foreign Vibrio strains from other Euprymna host species. Despite competitive dominance, secondary colonization events by invading nonnative Vibrio fischeri...
It has recently been proposed that mobile elements may be a significant driver of cooperation in microorganisms. This may drive a potential conflict, where cooperative genes are transmitted independently of the rest of the genome, resulting in scenarios where horizontally spread cooperative genes are favored, whereas a chromosomal equivalent would not be. This can lead to the whole genome being exploited...
The transition from outcrossing to predominant self‐fertilization is one of the most common evolutionary transitions in flowering plants. This shift is often accompanied by a suite of changes in floral and reproductive characters termed the selfing syndrome. Here, we characterize the genetic architecture and evolutionary forces underlying evolution of the selfing syndrome in Capsella rubella following...
In several cases, estimates of gene flow between species appear to be higher than we might predict given the strength of interspecific barriers separating these species pairs. However, as far as we are aware, detailed measurements of reproductive isolation have not previously been compared with a coalescent‐based assessment of gene flow. Here, we contrast these two measures in two species of sunflower,...
Recent work has shown that genetic robustness can either facilitate or impede adaptation. But the impact of environmental robustness on adaptation remains unclear. Environmental robustness helps ensure that organisms consistently develop the same phenotype in the face of “environmental noise” during development. Under purifying selection, those genotypes that express the optimal phenotype most reliably...
Plant‐pollinator interactions promote the evolution of floral traits that attract pollinators and facilitate efficient pollen transfer. The spatial separation of sex organs, herkogamy, is believed to limit sexual interference in hermaphrodite flowers. Reverse herkogamy (stigma recessed below anthers) and long, narrow corolla tubes are expected to promote efficiency in male function under hawkmoth...
Understanding how often natural selection directly favors speciation, a process known as reinforcement, has remained an outstanding problem for over 70 years. Although reinforcement has been strongly criticized in the past, it is once again seen as more realistic due to the seminal discovery of enhanced prezygotic isolation among sympatric species and to a handful of well‐studied examples. Nevertheless,...
Complex organismal structures are organized into modules, suites of traits that develop, function, and vary in a coordinated fashion. By limiting or directing covariation among component traits, modules are expected to represent evolutionary building blocks and to play an important role in morphological diversification. But how stable are patterns of modularity over macroevolutionary timescales? Comparative...
Workers of social Hymenoptera can usually produce male offspring, but rarely do so in the presence of a queen despite the potential individual fitness benefit. Various mechanisms have been hypothesized to regulate worker reproduction, including avoiding the colony‐level cost of worker reproduction. However, firm quantitative evidence is lacking to support that hypothesis. Here, we accurately quantified...
Inbreeding depression can reduce the performance of offspring produced by mating between relatives, with consequences for population dynamics and sexual‐system evolution. In flowering plants, inbreeding depression commonly acts most intensely during seed development. This predispersal component is typically estimated by comparing seed production following exclusive self‐ and cross‐pollination, but...
Genomic imprinting refers to the process whereby genes are silenced when inherited via sperm or egg. The most widely accepted theory for the evolution of genomic imprinting—the kinship theory—argues that conflict between maternally inherited and paternally inherited genes over phenotypes with asymmetric effects on matrilineal and patrilineal kin results in self‐imposed silencing of one of the copies...
We examined multivariate evolution of 20 leaf terpenoids in the invasive plant Melaleuca quinquenervia in a common garden experiment. Although most compounds, including 1,8‐Cineole and Viridiflorol, were reduced in home compared with invaded range genotypes, consistent with an evolutionary decrease in defense, one compound (E‐Nerolidol) was greater in invaded than home range genotypes. Nerolidol was...
The Devonian origin of seed plants and subsequent morphological diversification of seeds during the late Paleozoic represents an adaptive radiation into unoccupied ecological niche space. A plant's seed size is correlated with its life‐history strategy, growth form, and seed dispersal syndrome. The fossil record indicates that the oldest seed plants had relatively small seeds, but the Mississippian...
Males and females share most of the same genes, so selection in one sex will typically produce a correlated response in the other sex. Yet, the sexes have evolved to differ in a multitude of behavioral, morphological, and physiological traits. How did this sexual dimorphism evolve despite the presence of a common underlying genome? We investigated the potential role of gene duplication in the evolution...
The evolution of resistance to drugs is a major public health concern as it erodes the efficacy of our therapeutic arsenal against bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens. Increasingly, it is recognized that the evolution of resistance involves genetic changes at more than one locus, both in cases where multiple changes are required to obtain high‐level resistance, and where compensatory changes at...
The mechanics of speciation with gene flow are still unclear. Disparity among genes in population differentiation (FST) between diverging species is often interpreted as evidence for semipermeable species boundaries, with selection preventing “key” genes from introgressing despite ongoing gene flow. However, FST can remain high before it reaches equilibrium between the lineage sorting of species divergence...
The concept of a trade‐off has long played a prominent role in understanding the evolution of organismal interactions such as mutualism, parasitism, and competition. Given the complexity inherent to interactions between different evolutionary entities, ecological factors may especially limit the power of trade‐off models to predict evolutionary change. Here, we use four case studies to examine the...
Most biological systems are formed by component parts that are to some degree interrelated. Groups of parts that are more associated among themselves and are relatively autonomous from others are called modules. One of the consequences of modularity is that biological systems usually present an unequal distribution of the genetic variation among traits. Estimating the covariance matrix that describes...
Sperm display remarkable morphological diversity among even closely related species, a pattern that is widely attributed to postcopulatory sexual selection. Surprisingly few studies have used phylogenetic analyses to discern the details of evolutionary diversification in ornaments and armaments subject to sexual selection, and the origins of novel sperm traits and their subsequent modification are...
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