Dietary shift of predator in insular environment : evaluation of relative importance of natural selection and gene flow to phenotypic evolution

识别和确定历史生物事件的年代是解开群落聚集过程中适应性进化的致病机制的重要步骤。为了确定捕食者的生活史特征和颜色图案的进化是否与猎物的殖民顺序有关，我们提供了捕食者的殖民顺序在塑造捕食者的饮食转变和形态变化中的作用的历史证据。此外，还评估了自然选择、随机遗传漂变和基因流对头颅形态性状地理分化的相对重要性。野外资料表明，种群波动过程中存在较强的自然选择作用。

Identifying and dating historical biological events is an essential step to disentangle causative mechanisms of adaptive evolution during the course of community assembly. We present historical evidence for the roles of predator colonization order in shaping diet shift and morphological change of the predator snake, Elaphe quadrivirgata in order to determine if predator evolved life history traits and color pattern in association with colonization order of prey. Additionally, relative importance of natural selection, random genetic drift, and gene flow on geographic divergence in head morphological traits were evaluated. Field data suggests relatively strong natural selection was observed during the course of population fluctuation.