Evolution as a coexistence mechanism: Does genetic architecture matter?

TL;DR

This study investigates how genetic architecture influences whether evolution can enable coexistence in predator-prey and exploitative competition models, revealing that pleiotropy and ploidy significantly affect outcomes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the genetic basis of trait evolution, including pleiotropy and ploidy, critically determines the potential for eco-evolutionary coexistence mechanisms.

Findings

Synergistic pleiotropy can promote coexistence.

Antagonistic pleiotropy tends to prevent coexistence.

Density dependence and mutations also support coexistence.

Abstract

Species sharing a prey or a predator species may go extinct due to exploitative or apparent competition. We examine whether evolution of the shared species acts as a coexistence mechanism and to what extent the answer depends on the genetic architecture underlying trait evolution. In our models of exploitative and apparent competition, the shared species evolves its defense or prey use. Evolving species are either haploid or diploid. A single locus pleiotropically determines prey nutritional quality and predator attack rates. When pleiotropy is sufficiently antagonistic (e.g. nutritional prey are harder to capture), eco-evolutionary assembly culminates in one of two stable states supporting only two species. When pleiotropy is weakly antagonistic or synergistic, assembly is intransitive: species-genotype pairs are cyclically displaced by rare invasions of the missing genotypes or species. This intransitivity allows for coexistence if, along its equilibria, the geometric mean of recovery rates exceeds the geometric mean of loss rates of the rare genotypes or species. By affecting these rates, synergistic pleiotropy can mediate coexistence, while antagonistic pleiotropy does not. For diploid populations experiencing weak antagonistic pleiotropy, superadditive allelic contributions to fitness can mitigate coexistence via an eco-evolutionary storage effect. Density-dependence and mutations also promote coexistence. These results highlight how the efficacy of evolution as a coexistence mechanism may depend on the underlying genetic architecture.