Dynamical trade-offs arise from antagonistic coevolution and decrease intraspecific diversity

Weini Huang (), Arne Traulsen, Benjamin Werner, Teppo Hiltunen and Lutz Becks
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Weini Huang: Sun Yat-sen University
Arne Traulsen: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Benjamin Werner: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Teppo Hiltunen: University of Helsinki
Lutz Becks: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Trade-offs play an important role in evolution. Without trade-offs, evolution would maximize fitness of all traits leading to a “master of all traits”. The shape of trade-offs has been shown to determine evolutionary trajectories and is often assumed to be static and independent of the actual evolutionary process. Here we propose that coevolution leads to a dynamical trade-off. We test this hypothesis in a microbial predator–prey system and show that the bacterial growth-defense trade-off changes from concave to convex, i.e., defense is effective and cheap initially, but gets costly when predators coevolve. We further explore the impact of such dynamical trade-offs by a novel mathematical model incorporating de novo mutations for both species. Predator and prey populations diversify rapidly leading to higher prey diversity when the trade-off is concave (cheap). Coevolution results in more convex (costly) trade-offs and lower prey diversity compared to the scenario where only the prey evolves.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01957-8

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