Self-Reinforcing Spatial Patterns Enslave Evolution in a Host-Parasitoid System

✍ Scribed by Nicholas J. Savill; Pejman Rohani; Paulien Hogeweg

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 588 KB
• Volume: 188
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.1997.0448

✦ Synopsis

Spatially structured models of host-parasitoid interactions exhibit self-structuring into spatial patterns such as spiral waves and turbulence. We discuss the consequences of these patterns in an eco-evolutionary model of host-parasitoid interactions with evolution of the parasitoids' ability to disperse towards dense populations of hosts (termed the aggregation strength). It turns out that the direction of, and the time-scale over which the evolutionary selection pressure acts depends on the type of spatial pattern a parasitoid finds itself in. Evolution tends to reinforce the existence of the prevalent local pattern. Moreover, there is also competition between the patterns that ultimately determines the eco-evolutionary attractor. It is the interaction between multiple processes across spatial and temporal scales that leads to the rich meso-scale behaviour. Predicting the evolutionary outcome from statistical measures and subprocesses is shown to give incorrect and conflicting answers. Comparison with the behaviours of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation shows striking similarities on which we comment.