The evolution of placentation is predicted to intensify intergenomic conflicts between mothers and offspring over optimal levels of maternal investment by providing offspring opportunities to manipulate mothers into allocating more resources. Parent-offspring conflicts can result in the evolution of reproductive isolation among populations when conflicts resolve in different ways. Postzygotic reproductive isolation is hypothesized to evolve more rapidly following the evolution of placentation due to the predicted increase in conflict. We tested this hypothesis by performing interpopulation crosses within placental and non-placental species of Poeciliopsis to determine if the relationship between genetic distance and measures of postzygotic reproductive success differed as function of reproductive mode. We did not observe any differences in offspring viability or sterility among crosses. Offspring size declined rapidly as a function of interpopulation genetic distance within the placental species, but not among our non-placental species. The decrease in offspring size in the placental species was beyond normal variation, likely representing a major fitness cost, consistent with the prediction that negative epistatic interactions are evolving more quickly among populations in our placental species than the non-placental species. We discuss how our results support the role parent-offspring conflicts play in the evolution of reproductive isolation and reproductive mode.

The viviparity-driven conflict hypothesis postulates that the evolution of matrotrophy (postfertilization maternal provisioning) will result in a shift from a pre- to postcopulatory mate choice and thus accelerate the evolution of postcopulatory reproductive isolation. Here, we perform artificial insemination experiments on Heterandria formosa, a matrotrophic poeciliid fish, to probe for evidence of postcopulatory female choice. We established laboratory populations from Wacissa River (WR) and Lake Jackson (LJ). The WR females normally produce larger offspring than the LJ females. We artificially inseminated females with sperm from each population or from both populations simultaneously. When LJ females were inseminated with sperm from WR and LJ males, they allocated fewer resources to WR-sired offspring than when they were inseminated with WR sperm alone. The LJ females carrying developing offspring sired by males from different populations were thus able to discriminate against non-resident males when allocating resources to developing young. The WR females, which normally produce larger offspring than LJ females, did not discriminate among males from different localities. These findings provide insights into the ability of females from one population to exercise a form of postcopulatory mate selection.

A major question in ecology is how often competing species evolve to reduce competitive interactions and facilitate coexistence. One untested route for a reduction in competitive interactions is through ontogenetic changes in the trophic niche of one or more of the interacting species. In such cases, theory predicts that two species can coexist if the weaker competitor changes its resource niche to a greater degree with increased body size than the superior competitor. We tested this prediction using stable isotopes that yield information about the trophic position (δ15N) and carbon source (δ13C) of two coexisting fish species: Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and killifish (Rivulus hartii). We examined fish from locations representing three natural community types: 1) where killifish and guppies live with predators; 2) where killifish and guppies live without predators; and 3) where killifish are the only fish species. We also examined killifish from communities in which we had introduced guppies, providing a temporal sequence of the community changes following the transition from a killifish only to a killifish-guppy community. We found that killifish, which are the weaker competitor, had a much larger ontogenetic niche shift in trophic position than guppies in the community where competition is most intense (killifish-guppy only). This result is consistent with theory for size-structured populations, which predicts that these results should lead to stable coexistence of the two species. Comparisons with other communities containing guppies, killifish and predators and ones where killifish live by themselves revealed that these results are caused primarily by a loss of ontogenetic niche changes in guppies, even though they are the stronger competitor. Comparisons of these natural communities with communities in which guppies were translocated into sites containing only killifish showed that the experimental communities were intermediate between the natural killifish-guppy community and the killifish-guppy-predator community, suggesting contemporary evolution in these ontogenetic trophic differences. These results provide comparative evidence for ontogenetic niche shifts in contributing to species coexistence and comparative and experimental evidence for evolutionary or plastic changes in ontogenetic niche shifts following the formation of new communities.

The presence of stable color polymorphisms within populations begs the question of how genetic variation is maintained.  Consistent variation among populations in coloration, especially when correlated with environmental variation, raises questions about whether environmental conditions affect either the fulcrum of those balanced polymorphisms, the plastic expression of coloration, or both.  Color patterns in male bluefin killifish provoke both types of questions.  Red and yellow morphs are common in all populations.  Blue males are more common in tannin-stained swamps relative to clear springs.  Here we combined crosses with a manipulation of light to explore how genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity shape these patterns.  We found that the variation in coloration is attributable mainly to two axes of variation: (1) a red-yellow axis with yellow being dominant to red, and (2) a blue axis that can override red-yellow and is controlled by genetics, phenotypic plasticity, and genetic variation for phenotypic plasticity. The variation among populations in plasticity suggests it is adaptive in some populations but not others. The variation among sires in plasticity within the swamp population suggests balancing selection may be acting not only on the red-yellow polymorphism but also on plasticity for blue coloration.

Populations with different densities often show genetically-based differences in life histories. The divergent life histories could be driven by several agents of selection, one of which is variation in per-capita food levels. Its relationship with population density is complex, as it depends on overall food availability, individual metabolic demand, and food-independent factors potentially affecting density, such as predation intensity. Here we present a case study of two populations of a small live-bearing freshwater fish, one characterised by high density, low predation risk, low overall food availability, and presumably low per-capita food levels, and the other by low density, high predation risk, high overall food availability, and presumably high per-capita food levels. Using a laboratory experiment we examined whether fish from these populations respond differently to food limitation, and whether size at birth, a key trait with respect to density variation in this species, is associated with any such differential responses. While at the lower food level growth was slower, body size smaller, maturation delayed and survival reduced in both populations, these fitness costs were smaller in fish from the high-density population. At low food, only 15% of high-density fish died, compared to 75% of low-density fish. This difference was much smaller at high food (0% vs. 15% mortality). The increased survival of high-density fish may, at least partly, be due to their larger size at birth. Moreover, being larger at birth enabled fish to mature relatively early even at the lower food level. We demonstrate that sensitivities to food limitation differ between study populations, consistent with selection for a greater ability to tolerate low per-capita food availability in the high-density population. While we cannot preclude other agents of selection from operating in these populations simultaneously, our results suggest that variation in per-capita food levels is one of those agents.

Life-history phenotypes emerge from clusters of traits that are the product of genes and phenotypic plasticity. If the impact of the environment differs substantially between traits, then life histories might not evolve as a cohesive whole. We quantified the sensitivity of components of the life history to food availability, a key environmental difference in the habitat occupied by contrasting ecotypes, for 36 traits in fast-and slow-reproducing Trinidadian guppies. Our dataset included six putatively independent origins of the slow-reproducing, derived ecotype. Traits varied substantially in plastic and genetic control. Twelve traits were influenced only by food availability (body lengths, body weights), five only by genetic differentiation (inter-birth intervals, offspring sizes), ten by both (litter sizes, reproductive timing), and nine by neither (fat contents, reproductive allotment). Ecotype-by-food interactions were negligible. The response to low food was aligned with the genetic difference between high- and low-food environments, suggesting that plasticity was adaptive. The heterogeneity among traits in environmental sensitivity and genetic differentiation reveals that the components of the life history may not evolve in concert. Ecotypes may instead represent mosaics of trait groups that differ in their rate of evolution.

1. Theory indicates that competing species coexist in a community when intraspecific competition is stronger than interspecific competition. When body size determines the outcome of competitive interactions between individuals, coexistence depends also on how resource use and the ability to compete for these resources change with body size. Testing coexistence theory in size-structured communities, therefore, requires disentangling the effects of size-dependent competitive abilities and niche shifts. 2. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the evolution of species and size-dependent competitive asymmetries increased the likelihood of coexistence between interacting species. 3. We experimentally estimated the effects of size-dependent competitive interactions on somatic growth rates of two interacting fish species, Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) and killifish (Rivulus hartii). We controlled for the effects of size-dependent changes in the niche at two competitive settings representing the early (allopatric) and late (sympatric) evolutionary stages of a killifish-guppy community. We fitted the growth data to a model that incorporates species and size-dependent competitive asymmetries to test whether changes in the competitive interactions across sizes increased the likelihood of species coexistence from allopatry to sympatry. 4. We found that guppies are competitively superior to killifish but were less so in sympatric populations. The decrease in the effects of interspecific competition on the fitness of killifish and increase in the interspecific effect on guppies’ fitness increased the likelihood that sympatric guppies and killifish will coexist. However, while the competitive asymmetries between the species changed consistently between allopatry and sympatry between drainages, the magnitude of the size-dependent competitive asymmetries varied between drainages. 5. These results demonstrate the importance of integrating evolution and trait-based interactions into the research on how species coexist.

Predicting how social environment affects life history variation is critical to understanding if, and when, selection favors alternative life history development, especially in systems in which social interactions change over time or space. While sexual selection theory predicts that males and females should respond differently to variation in the social environment, few studies have examined the responses of both male and female phenotypes to the same gradient of social environment. In this study, we used a livebearing fish to determine how males and females altered their life histories in response to variation in social environment during development. We found that both males and females delayed maturity and attained larger sizes when their social environment included adults, in contrast to developing in juvenile-only environments. The magnitude of this effect differed substantially between the sexes. The common pattern of response in the sexes suggested that life history tradeoffs rather than sexual selection, is responsible for these changes in life-history expression. These effects make the relationship between genotype and phenotype depend strongly on the environment experienced by each individual. These results indicate that social environment is an important driver of life history variation in sailfin mollies and can be at least as important as abiotic effects.

Detecting contemporary evolution requires demonstrating that genetic change has occurred. Mixed-effects models allow estimation of quantitative genetic parameters and are widely used to study evolution in wild populations. However, predictions of evolution based on these parameters frequently fail to match observations. Furthermore, such studies often lack an independent measure of evolutionary change against which to verify predictions. Here, we applied three commonly used quantitative genetic approaches to predict the evolution of size at maturity in a wild population of Trinidadian guppies. Crucially, we tested our predictions against evolutionary change observed in common garden experiments performed on samples from the same population. We show that standard quantitative genetic models underestimated or failed to detect the cryptic evolution of this trait as demonstrated by the common garden experiments. The models failed because: 1) size at maturity and fitness both decreased with increases in population density, 2) offspring experienced higher population densities than their parents, and 3) selection on size was strongest at high densities. When we accounted for environmental change, predictions better matched observations in the common garden experiments, although substantial uncertainty remained. Our results demonstrate that predictions of evolution are unreliable if environmental change is not appropriately captured in models.

All known vertebrate clones have originated from hybridization events and some have produced distinct evolutionary lineages via hybrid speciation. Amazon mollies (Poecilia formosa) present an excellent study system to investigate how clonal species have adapted to heterogeneous environments because they are the product of a single hybridization event between male sailfin mollies (P. latipinna) and female Atlantic mollies (P. mexicana). Here we ask whether the hybrid species differs from the combination of its parental species’ genes in its plastic response to different environments. Using a 3-way factorial design, we exposed neonates produced by Amazon mollies and reciprocal F1 hybrid crosses to different thermal (24° and 29° C) and salinity (0/2, 12, 20 ppt) regimes. We measured various ontogenetic and life history characteristics across the lifespan of females. Our major results were: 1) Reaction norms of growth and maturation to temperature and salinity are quite similar between the two hybrid crosses; 2) Amazon molly reaction norms were qualitatively different than the P. latipinna male and P. mexicana female (LxM) hybrids for the ontogenetic variables; 3) Amazon molly reaction norms in reproductive traits were also quite different from LxM hybrids; 4) The reaction norms of net fertility were very different between Amazon mollies and LxM hybrids. We conclude that best locale for Amazon mollies is not the best locale for hybrids, which suggests that Amazon mollies are not just an unmodified mix of parental genes but instead have adapted to the variable environments in which they are found.