Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Coevolution includes many forms of mutualism, host-parasite, and predator-prey relationships between species, as well as competition within or between species. In many cases, the selective pressures drive an evolutionary arms race between the species involved.
For example, exploitative interactions between a predator and prey can result in the extinction of the victim (the prey, in this case), as the predator, by definition, kills the prey, and thus reduces its population. [2] Another effect of these interactions is in the coevolutionary "hot" and "cold spots" put forth by geographic mosaic theory ...
Since specialization is caused by predator-prey coevolution, the rarity of specialists may imply that predator-prey arms races are rare. [122] It is difficult to determine whether given adaptations are truly the result of coevolution, where a prey adaptation gives rise to a predator adaptation that is countered by further adaptation in the prey.
Examples include predator-prey competition and host-parasite co-evolution, as well as mutualism. Evolutionary game models have been created for pairwise and multi-species coevolutionary systems. [58] The general dynamic differs between competitive systems and mutualistic systems.
The main subfields of evolutionary ecology are life history evolution, sociobiology (the evolution of social behavior), the evolution of interspecific interactions (e.g. cooperation, predator–prey interactions, parasitism, mutualism) and the evolution of biodiversity and of ecological communities.
Escape and radiate coevolution is a hypothesis proposing that a coevolutionary 'arms-race' between primary producers and their consumers contributes to the diversification of species by accelerating speciation rates. The hypothesized process involves the evolution of novel defenses in the host, allowing it to "escape" and then "radiate" into ...
These changes in the second species then, in turn, cause new adaptations in the first species. This cycle of selection and response is called coevolution. [192] An example is the production of tetrodotoxin in the rough-skinned newt and the evolution of tetrodotoxin resistance in its predator, the common garter snake.
Huffaker’s experimental universes showed that while under many circumstances predator–prey interactions will lead to extinction of both populations, interactions of spatial heterogeneity, dispersal ability of predator and prey species, and distribution of food sources can create an environment in which predator and prey species can coexist.