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      Variable mating behaviors and the maintenance of tropical biodiversity

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          Abstract

          Current theoretical studies on mechanisms promoting species co-existence in diverse communities assume that species are fixed in their mating behavior. Each species is a discrete evolutionary unit, even though most empirical evidence indicates that inter-specific gene flow occurs in plant and animal groups. Here, in a data-driven meta-community model of species co-existence, we allow mating behavior to respond to local species composition and abundance. While individuals primarily out-cross, species maintain a diminished capacity for selfing and hybridization. Mate choice is treated as a variable behavior, which responds to intrinsic traits determining mate choice and the density and availability of sympatric inter-fertile individuals. When mate choice is strongly limited, even low survivorship of selfed offspring can prevent extinction of rare species. With increasing mate choice, low hybridization success rates maintain community level diversity for extended periods of time. In high diversity tropical tree communities, competition among sympatric congeneric species is negligible, because direct spatial proximity with close relatives is infrequent. Therefore, the genomic donorship presents little cost. By incorporating variable mating behavior into evolutionary models of diversification, we also discuss how participation in a syngameon may be selectively advantageous. We view this behavior as a genomic mutualism, where maintenance of genomic structure and diminished inter-fertility, allows each species in the syngameon to benefit from a greater effective population size during episodes of selective disadvantage. Rare species would play a particularly important role in these syngameons as they are more likely to produce heterospecific crosses and transgressive phenotypes. We propose that inter-specific gene flow can play a critical role by allowing genomic mutualists to avoid extinction and gain local adaptations.

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          Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs.

          The commonly observed high diversity of trees in tropical rain forests and corals on tropical reefs is a nonequilibrium state which, if not disturbed further, will progress toward a low-diversity equilibrium community. This may not happen if gradual changes in climate favor different species. If equilibrium is reached, a lesser degree of diversity may be sustained by niche diversification or by a compensatory mortality that favors inferior competitors. However, tropical forests and reefs are subject to severe disturbances often enough that equilibrium may never be attained.
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            Plant diversity in tropical forests: a review of mechanisms of species coexistence

            Evidence concerning mechanisms hypothesized to explain species coexistence in hyper-diverse communities is reviewed for tropical forest plants. Three hypotheses receive strong support. Niche differences are evident from non-random spatial distributions along micro-topographic gradients and from a survivorship-growth tradeoff during regeneration. Host-specific pests reduce recruitment near reproductive adults (the Janzen-Connell effect), and, negative density dependence occurs over larger spatial scales among the more abundant species and may regulate their populations. A fourth hypothesis, that suppressed understory plants rarely come into competition with one another, has not been considered before and has profound implications for species coexistence. These hypotheses are mutually compatible. Infrequent competition among suppressed understory plants, niche differences, and Janzen-Connell effects may facilitate the coexistence of the many rare plant species found in tropical forests while negative density dependence regulates the few most successful and abundant species.
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              The genic view of the process of speciation

              Chung-I Wu (2001)
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Genet
                Front Genet
                Front. Genet.
                Frontiers in Genetics
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-8021
                19 May 2015
                2015
                : 6
                : 183
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Key Lab in Tropical Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Menglun, China
                [2] 2Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University , Lubbock, TX, USA
                [3] 3Departments of Environmental Sciences and Biology, University of Virginia , Charlottesville, VA, USA
                Author notes

                Edited by: James E. Richardson, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK

                Reviewed by: Paul Fine, University of California, Berkeley, USA; Mike Arnold, University of Georgia, USA

                *Correspondence: Charles H. Cannon, Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Flint and Main Street, Box 43131, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA, chuck.cannon@ 123456ttu.edu

                This article was submitted to Evolutionary and Population Genetics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Genetics.

                Article
                10.3389/fgene.2015.00183
                4437050
                26042148
                028fde31-cff7-41b4-b857-ca0a7cd40826
                Copyright © 2015 Cannon and Lerdau.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 30 May 2014
                : 30 April 2015
                Page count
                Figures: 5, Tables: 0, Equations: 0, References: 83, Pages: 12, Words: 9165
                Categories
                Genetics
                Original Research

                Genetics
                syngameon,genomic mutualists,tropical trees,selfing,inter-specific hybridization,density-dependence,maintenance of diversity

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