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Related Concept Videos

Competition02:34

Competition

When organisms require the same limited resources within an environment, they may have to compete for them. Competition is a net-negative interaction. Even if two competing individuals or populations do not interact directly, the overall fitness of both competitors is lowered as a result of not having full access to the limited resource.
Evolutionary Psychology01:20

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology explores the origins of human behavior and mental processes by framing them within the context of natural selection, a theory famously propounded by Charles Darwin. This field asserts that many behaviors common across human societies — ranging from instinctive fear reactions to complex social interactions — arose as evolutionary adaptations. These adaptations enhanced the survival and reproductive success of our ancestors, thereby becoming embedded in the human psyche...
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Small population sizes put a species at extreme risk of extinction due to a lack of variation, and a consequent decrease in adaptability. This weakens the chances of survival under pressures such as climate change, competition from other species, or new diseases. Large populations are more likely to survive pressures such as these, as such populations are more likely to harbor individuals that have genetic variants that are adaptive under new stresses. Small populations are much less likely to...
Inclusive Fitness00:57

Inclusive Fitness

Most altruistic behavior—in which one animal helps another at a cost to themselves—occurs between relatives. Scientists think these altruistic behaviors evolved because they increase the inclusive fitness of the animal providing help.

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Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
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How competition affects evolutionary rescue.

Matthew Miles Osmond1, Claire de Mazancourt

  • 1Redpath Museum, McGill University, 859 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. matthew.osmond@mail.mcgill.ca

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
|December 5, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Intraspecific competition hinders evolutionary rescue by reducing population size and beneficial mutation rates. Interspecific competition can aid rescue by increasing selection pressure, but only if it overcomes reduced abundance.

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Population Genetics

Background:

  • Populations must adapt to persist in novel environments.
  • Interactions between individuals, including competition, influence adaptation potential.
  • Evolutionary rescue is crucial for species survival amid environmental change.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how intra- and interspecific competition affect evolutionary rescue.
  • To determine the conditions under which competition aids or hinders adaptation.
  • To model the interplay between competition, abundance, and selection in evolutionary rescue.

Main Methods:

  • An adaptive dynamic model was employed.
  • The model assessed the impact of density-dependence (intraspecific competition).
  • The model analyzed the effects of interspecific competition on selection strength and adaptation.

Main Results:

  • Intraspecific competition negatively impacts evolutionary rescue by lowering population abundance and the supply of beneficial mutations.
  • Interspecific competition can accelerate adaptation and facilitate evolutionary rescue.
  • Effective evolutionary rescue requires interspecific competition to sufficiently increase selection pressure to counteract reduced abundance.

Conclusions:

  • Competition's effect on evolutionary rescue is context-dependent.
  • Facilitation of rapid niche displacement in communities enhances the likelihood of evolutionary rescue.
  • This study provides a framework for understanding when competitors help or hinder evolutionary rescue.