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Selective predation on wing morphology in sympatric damselflies

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Author

Summary, in English

Although predation is thought to affect species divergence, the effects of predator-mediated natural selection on species divergence and in nonadaptive radiations have seldom been studied. Wing melanization in Calopteryx damselflies has important functions in sexual selection and interspecific interactions and in species recognition. The genus Calopteryx and other damselfly genera have also been put forward as examples of radiations driven by sexual selection. We show that avian predation strongly affects natural selection on wing morphology and male wing melanization in two congeneric and sympatric species of this genus (Calopteryx splendens and Calopteryx virgo). Predation risk was almost three times higher for C. virgo, which has an exaggerated degree of wing melanization, than it was for the less exaggerated, sympatric congener C. splendens. Selective predation on the exaggerated species C. virgo favored a reduction and redistribution of the wing melanin patch. There was evidence for nonlinear selection involving wing patch size, wing patch darkness, and wing length and width in C. splendens but weaker nonlinear selection on the same trait combinations in C. virgo. Selective predation could interfere with species divergence by sexual selection and may thus indirectly affect male interspecific interactions, reproductive isolation, and species coexistence in this genus.

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Pages

101-112

Publication/Series

American Naturalist

Volume

170

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • reproductive isolation
  • interspecific competition
  • correlational selection
  • indirect effects
  • speciation
  • species interactions

Status

Published

Research group

  • Evolution and Ecology of Phenotypes in Nature

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0003-0147