Selection mosaics and the GMTC

This past week in Coevolvers, we dropped back into the empirical world and ready a paper from Piculell et al (2008) on evidence of selection mosaics. Selection mosaics describe a case where the fitness function of the interacting players varies across space (Gomulkiewicz et al 2007; Thompson 1999, 2005), sometimes described as GxGxE interactions (G: genetic; E: environment). What does this mean more generally? Simply put, the fitness of a plant may change from one population to the next because the nature of the interaction with a mutualist is affected by the environment. This can occur even if the genotypes that make up those populations are exactly the same.

The experimental design was certainly setting up the case for a maximum chance of detection of interaction effects. With only levels of each factor, (e.g. two genotypes of the host) the authors had less power to detect any main effects, but that clearly wasn't the objective. They wanted to find evidence of significant GxGxE. Essentially this experiment had 4 environmental treatments, so they maximized the chance of an interaction. The authors of this paper were very upfront that they were not intending to measure a selection mosaic in the natural setting. Their objective was to demonstrate the possibility and they certainly obtained that goal. With that limitation in mind, how general are these results? Measuring the potential for a selection mosaic is one thing, but for this to really have an impact in generating or maintaining diversity as imagined in the Geographic Mosaic Theory of Coevolution (Thompson 1999, 2005) then it must hold for a broad sample of the populations under investigation. The authors are on a good track though to discovering more about this system. Perhaps they plan on taking the methodology outlined in Nuismer and Gandon (2008) on reciprocal-transplant designs. Picking a larger sample of the genetic variation found in nature for at least one of the players would extend their results from the possible into the probable.

References

Gomulkiewicz, R., D. M. Drown, M. F. Dybdahl, W. Godsoe, S. L. Nuismer, K. M. Pepin, B. J. Ridenhour, C. I. Smith, and J. B. Yoder. 2007. Dos and don'ts of testing the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution. Heredity 98:249-258.

Nuismer, S. L., and S. Gandon. 2008. Moving beyond Common-Garden and Transplant Designs: Insight into the Causes of Local Adaptation in Species Interactions. American Naturalist 171:658-668.

Piculell, B., J. Hoeksema, and J. Thompson. 2008. Interactions of biotic and abiotic environmental factors in an ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, and the potential for selection mosaics. Bmc Biol 6:23.

Thompson, J. N. 1999. Specific hypotheses on the geographic mosaic of coevolution. American Naturalist 153:S1-S14.

Thompson, J. N. 2005.
The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Paper Read

Piculell, B., Hoeksema, J., & Thompson, J. (2008). Interactions of biotic and abiotic environmental factors on an ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, and the potential for selection mosaics BMC Biology, 6 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-6-23