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Spatial scale and temporal component of selection in side-blotched lizards

Author

Summary, in English

Spatial variation in selection has long been recognized as promoting population divergence and in maintaining genetic polymorphisms, but selection at a fine spatial scale is seldom measured directly. We analyzed spatial and temporal variation in selective regimes on egg size using long-term population data of the side-blotched lizard ( Uta stansburiana). Juvenile survival rates varied between years at a small spatial scale that was reflected as a strong interaction between the local neighborhood level and year. Spatially and temporally variable selection acted jointly on egg mass, which presumably would facilitate the maintenance of high additive genetic variance for this trait. Local selection gradients calculated at the neighborhood level were significantly correlated with the annual global selection gradients calculated at the metapopulation level. However, there was substantial variance in these local selective regimes, which suggests that strong local selection could go undetected if the analysis was limited to the global level. We also investigated the degree of spatial synchronization among outcrop in local selection gradients. The degree of synchrony was higher among later-clutch hatchlings than among first-clutch hatchlings, and we suggest that more intense density- and frequency-dependent selection on egg size later in the season is responsible for this effect.

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

726-734

Publication/Series

American Naturalist

Volume

163

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • competition
  • egg mass
  • frequency dependence
  • polymorphism

Status

Published

Research group

  • Evolution and Ecology of Phenotypes in Nature

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0003-0147