Conflict between biotic and climatic selective pressures acting on an extended phenotype in a subarctic, but not temperate, environment.

ABSTRACT: Climatic selective pressures are thought to dominate biotic selective pressures at higher latitudes. However, few studies have experimentally tested how these selective pressures differentially act on traits across latitudes because traits can rarely be manipulated independently of the organism in nature. We overcame this challenge by using an extended phenotype-active bird nests-and conducted reciprocal transplant experiments between a subarctic and temperate site, separated by 14° of latitude. At the subarctic site, biotic selective pressures (nest predation) favoured smaller, non-local temperate nests, whereas climatic selective pressures (temperature) favoured larger local nests, particularly at colder temperatures. By contrast, at the temperate site, climatic and biotic selective pres

SUBMITTER: Rohwer VG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4633873 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature