Cheating and the evolutionary stability of mutualisms
Cheating and the evolutionary stability of mutualisms
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2001.1900
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发表时间：
2002-04-22
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Gauduchon, M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ferriere, R;Bronstein, JL;Gauduchon, M
自生命早期历史以来，种间互惠在所有生态系统的功能中发挥着核心作用。然而，与竞争、捕食者-被捕食者和宿主-寄生虫相互作用的成熟的共同进化理论相比，互利共生者的共同进化理论实际上是不存在的。这阻碍了解决互惠现象所带来的一个基本难题：尽管进化过程中存在明显的不稳定性，但互惠现象依然存在。“欺骗”的选择性优势，即收获互惠互利的好处，同时提供更少的商品给伙伴物种，通常被认为会侵蚀互惠互利的相互作用，导致其解散或相互灭绝。然而，最近的实证研究结果表明，互惠主义者和作弊者的稳定协会已经存在了很长的进化时期。在这里，我们表明，物种内的互惠合作伙伴提供的商品的不对称竞争提供了一个简单的和可测试的生态机制，可以解释互惠的长期持久性。欺骗，实际上，建立了一个背景，在这个背景下，更好的互助者可以展示任何竞争优势。这可能导致互惠主义者和作弊者表型的共存和分歧，以及生态相似但不相关的互惠主义者和作弊者的共存。
Interspecific mutualisms have been playing a central role in the functioning of all ecosystems since the early history of life. Yet the theory of coevolution of mutualists is virtually nonexistent, by contrast with well-developed coevolutionary theories of competition, predator-prey and host-parasite interactions. This has prevented resolution of a basic puzzle posed by mutualisms: their persistence in spite of apparent evolutionary instability. The selective advantage of 'cheating', that is, reaping mutualistic benefits while providing fewer commodities to the partner species, is commonly believed to erode a mutualistic interaction, leading to its dissolution or reciprocal extinction. However, recent empirical findings indicate that stable associations of mutualists and cheaters have existed over long evolutionary periods. Here, we show that asymmetrical competition within species for the commodities offered by mutualistic partners provides a simple and testable ecological mechanism that can account for the long-term persistence of mutualisms. Cheating, in effect, establishes a background against which better mutualists can display any competitive superiority. This can lead to the coexistence and divergence of mutualist and cheater phenotypes, as well as to the coexistence of ecologically similar, but unrelated mutualists and cheaters.