Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

Warren, Ben; Simberloff, Daniel; Ricklefs, Robert E.; Aguilée, Robin; Condamine, Fabien L.; Gravel, Dominique; Morlon, Hélène; Mouquet, Nicolas; Rosindell, James; Casquet, Juliane; Conti, Elena; Cornuault, Josselin; Fernández‐Palacios, José María; Hengl, Tomislav; Norder, Sietze J.; Rijsdijk, Kenneth F.; Sanmartín, Isabel; Strasberg, Dominique; Triantis, Kostas A.; Valente, Luís; Whittaker, Robert J.; Gillespie, Rosemary G.; Emerson, Brent C.; Thébaud, Christophe

doi:10.1111/ele.12398

Cited by 409 publications

(461 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…However, this case is roughly eight times older than ours (∼250,000 y) (42), and despite evidence for recent and ongoing introgression between D. sechellia and its relative D. simulans (42,43), it is unknown whether the initial phases of noni specialization have also involved gene flow. The geographic parallelism between the two species supports a major role of islands in facilitating specialization on otherwise nonpreferred resources by reducing gene flow (44).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Recurrent specialization on a toxic fruit in an island Drosophila population

Yassin

Debat

Bastide

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

125

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Recurrent specialization on similar host plants offers a unique opportunity to unravel the evolutionary and genetic mechanisms underlying dietary shifts. Recent studies have focused on ecological races belonging to the same species, but it is hard in many cases to untangle the role of adaptive introgression versus distinct mutations in facilitating recurrent evolution. We discovered on the island of Mayotte a population of the generalist fly Drosophila yakuba that is strictly associated with noni (Morinda citrifolia). This case strongly resembles Drosophila sechellia, a genetically isolated insular relative of D. yakuba whose intensely studied specialization on toxic noni fruits has always been considered a unique event in insect evolution. Experiments revealed that unlike mainland D. yakuba strains, Mayotte flies showed strong olfactory attraction and significant toxin tolerance to noni. Island females strongly discriminated against mainland males, suggesting that dietary adaptation has been accompanied by partial reproductive isolation. Population genomic analysis indicated a recent colonization (∼29 kya), at a time when year-round noni fruits may have presented a predictable resource on the small island, with ongoing migration after colonization. This relatively recent time scale allowed us to search for putatively adaptive loci based on genetic variation. Strong signals of genetic differentiation were found for several detoxification genes, including a major toxin tolerance locus in D. sechellia. Our results suggest that recurrent evolution on a toxic resource can involve similar historical events and common genetic bases, and they establish an important genetic system for the study of early stages of ecological specialization and speciation.host plant adaptation | ecological genomics | parallel evolution | island speciation | Drosophila yakuba E ver since Darwin's (1) description of finch diversity on the Galapagos archipelago, dietary specialization has been considered a major drive of speciation by means of natural selection. Adaptation to similar diets have led to the parallel evolution of beak morphology in some species inhabiting different islands, but genome analyses revealed that this was most likely due to the adaptive introgression of the underlying loci between species (2). In herbivorous insects, host plant specialization also plays a major role in diversification (3), and spectacular examples of convergent evolution both in plant resistant toxins and insect toxin resistances spanning hundred million of years of divergence have been observed. For example, several unrelated flowering plants produce cardenolides that block activity of the ion gradient regulating enzyme (Na + +K + )ATPase in insects, but identical cardenolideresistant amino acid substitutions in this enzyme have independently arisen in beetles, butterflies, flies, and aphids specializing on such plants (4). Recent genomic studies have focused on parallel dietary shifts in early-diverging ecological races, pointing to a substantial d...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Recurrent specialization on a toxic fruit in an island Drosophila population

Yassin

Debat

Bastide

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

125

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“…These predictions are largely borne out by the data (table 1 and figure 3). For mammals, the average critical area (geometric mean) is 20 km 2 , but for birds it is 0.78 km 2 . For marine archipelagos, the average critical area is 2.6 km 2 , but for archipelagos in inland waters it is a tiny 0.0020 km 2 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

et al. 2016

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theory of island biogeography predicts that island species richness should increase with island area. This prediction generally holds among large islands, but among small islands species richness often varies independently of island area, producing the so-called 'small-island effect' and an overall biphasic species -area relationship (SAR). Here, we develop a unified theory that explains the biphasic island SAR. Our theory's key postulate is that as island area increases, the total number of immigrants increases faster than niche diversity. A parsimonious mechanistic model approximating these processes reproduces a biphasic SAR and provides excellent fits to 100 archipelago datasets. In the light of our theory, the biphasic island SAR can be interpreted as arising from a transition from a nichestructured regime on small islands to a colonization-extinction balance regime on large islands. The first regime is characteristic of classic deterministic niche theories; the second regime is characteristic of stochastic theories including the theory of island biogeography and neutral theory. The data furthermore confirm our theory's key prediction that the transition between the two SAR regimes should occur at smaller areas, where immigration is stronger (i.e. for taxa that are better dispersers and for archipelagos that are less isolated).

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“…Likewise, ecologists have long recognized the value of islands as microcosms of the processes of community assembly (10,11). In recent years, there has been growing interest in combining these elements to study the evolution of community assembly, with particular focus on islands within (and beyond) the "radiation zone" (10), where in situ speciation can be a major contributor to the origin of ecological communities (12,13).…”

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confidence: 99%

Comparative phylogeography of oceanic archipelagos: Hotspots for inferences of evolutionary process

Shaw

Gillespie

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

143

151

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Remote island archipelagos offer superb opportunities to study the evolution of community assembly because of their relatively young and simple communities where speciation contributes to the origin and evolution of community structure. There is great potential for common phylogeographic patterns among remote archipelagos that originate through hotspot volcanism, particularly when the islands formed are spatially isolated and linearly arranged. The progression rule is characterized by a phylogeographic concordance between island age and lineage age in a species radiation. Progression is most likely to arise when a species radiation begins on an older island before the emergence of younger islands of a hotspot archipelago. In the simplest form of progression, colonization of younger islands as they emerge and offer appropriate habitat, is coincident with cladogenesis. In this paper, we review recent discoveries of the progression rule on seven hotspot archipelagos. We then discuss advantages that progression offers to the study of community assembly, and insights that community dynamics may offer toward understanding the evolution of progression. We describe results from two compelling cases of progression where the mosaic genome may offer insights into contrasting demographic histories that shed light on mechanisms of speciation and progression on remote archipelagos.progression rule | speciation | priority effect | community assembly | radiation zone

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Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

Cited by 409 publications

References 93 publications

Recurrent specialization on a toxic fruit in an island Drosophila population

Recurrent specialization on a toxic fruit in an island Drosophila population

Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

Comparative phylogeography of oceanic archipelagos: Hotspots for inferences of evolutionary process

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