Journal
BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Volume 97, Issue 3, Pages 494-502Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2009.01234.x
Keywords
co-evolution; gene flow; genetic variation; herbivory; natural selection; Red Queen; seed predation; speciation
Categories
Funding
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies at SUNY Stony Brook
- Lepidoptera Foundation
- Stony Brook University [1178]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0807418] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Local adaptation has central importance in the understanding of co-evolution, maintenance of sexual reproduction, and speciation. We investigated local adaptation in the alkaloid-bearing legume Crotalaria pallida and its seed predator, the arctiid moth Utetheisa ornatrix, at different spatial scales. When we studied three populations from south-east Brazil (150 km apart), we did not find evidence of local adaptation, although we did find interpopulational differences in herbivore performance, and a significant interaction between herbivore sex and plant population. These results indicate that both moth and plant populations are differentiated at the regional scale. In a comparison of populations from Brazil and Florida, the herbivore showed local adaptation to its host plant; for both moth populations, the pupae were heavier when the larvae ate the sympatric than the allopatric host population. We discuss the scale dependence of our results and the possible causes for the lack of local adaptation at the regional scale, even in the presence of plant and moth differentiation. The results obtained demonstrate the importance of studying co-evolution and local adaptation at different geographical scales. (C) 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 97, 494-502.
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