Experimental evolution in sympatry leads to higher growth rates, but does not alleviate the costs of competition and reproductive interference
Abstract
Organisms often exert strong fitness costs upon individuals from other species that either compete for the same resources or that interact with them via reproductive interference. Therefore, evolution in sympatry is expected to lead to the alleviation of such interactions, ultimately facilitating coexistence. However, only few studies have tested the effect of evolution on competition and reproductive interference simultaneously. To fill this gap, we measured the strength of these interactions after 20 generations of experimental evolution of two incipient spider mite species, Tetranychus urticae and T. cinnabarinus in allopatry or in sympatry, in a homogeneous environment. We found that most responses after evolution in sympatry were transient, suggesting an important role of fluctuating selection. In particular, we found higher intrinsic growth rates of both species in sympatry, but only at specific time points, which differ between T. urticae and T. cinnabarinus. This came at a cost for T. urticae, which suffered from increased sensitivity to interspecific competition and lower ability to induce reproductive interference on T. cinnabarinus, suggesting a growth-competition trade-off. Other negative correlations among traits underlying trophic and sexual interactions were also found. Together, such constraints may hamper species divergence, which is compatible with the lack of significant changes in the probability of coexistence between the two species after evolving with heterospecifics. Possibly, a more complex environment may be necessary to enable trait changes facilitating coexistence.
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BibTeX
@misc{cruz2026experimental,
title = {{Experimental evolution in sympatry leads to higher growth rates, but does not alleviate the costs of competition and reproductive interference}},
author = {Miguel A Cruz and Vitor C Sousa and Inês Santos and Flore Zélé and Sara Magalhães},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20311408},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05794267v1},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Experimental evolution in sympatry leads to higher growth rates, but does not alleviate the costs of competition and reproductive interference
AU - Miguel A Cruz
AU - Vitor C Sousa
AU - Inês Santos
AU - Flore Zélé
AU - Sara Magalhães
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
PB - HAL
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.20311408
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05794267v1
AB - Organisms often exert strong fitness costs upon individuals from other species that either compete for the same resources or that interact with them via reproductive interference. Therefore, evolution in sympatry is expected to lead to the alleviation of such interactions, ultimately facilitating coexistence. However, only few studies have tested the effect of evolution on competition and reproductive interference simultaneously. To fill this gap, we measured the strength of these interactions after 20 generations of experimental evolution of two incipient spider mite species, Tetranychus urticae and T. cinnabarinus in allopatry or in sympatry, in a homogeneous environment. We found that most responses after evolution in sympatry were transient, suggesting an important role of fluctuating selection. In particular, we found higher intrinsic growth rates of both species in sympatry, but only at specific time points, which differ between T. urticae and T. cinnabarinus. This came at a cost for T. urticae, which suffered from increased sensitivity to interspecific competition and lower ability to induce reproductive interference on T. cinnabarinus, suggesting a growth-competition trade-off. Other negative correlations among traits underlying trophic and sexual interactions were also found. Together, such constraints may hamper species divergence, which is compatible with the lack of significant changes in the probability of coexistence between the two species after evolving with heterospecifics. Possibly, a more complex environment may be necessary to enable trait changes facilitating coexistence.
ER -