Antagonistic Effects of Intraspecific Cooperation and Interspecific Competition on Thermal Performance
Abstract
Understanding how climate-mediated biotic interactions shape thermal niche width is critical in an era of global change. Yet, most previous work on thermal niches has ignored detailed mechanistic information about the relationship between temperature and organismal performance, which can be described by a thermal performance curve. Here, we develop a model that predicts the width of thermal performance curves will be narrower in the presence of interspecific competitors, causing a species' optimal breeding temperature to diverge from that of its competitor. We test this prediction in the Asian burying beetle Nicrophorus nepalensis, confirming that the divergence in actual and optimal breeding temperatures is the result of competition with their primary competitor, blowflies. However, we further show that intraspecific cooperation enables beetles to outcompete blowflies by recovering their optimal breeding temperature. Ultimately, linking abiotic factors and biotic interactions on niche width will be critical for understanding species-specific responses to climate change.
Data availability
All data analysed during the study are available in Dryad.
-
Source data for empirical experimentsDryad Digital Repository, doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w0vt4b8nw.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (103-2621-B-001 -003 -MY3)
- Sheng-Feng Shen
National Science Foundation (IOS-1656098)
- Dustin Reid Rubenstein
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (101-2313-B-001 -008 -MY3)
- Sheng-Feng Shen
Academia Sinica (AS-SS-106-05)
- Sheng-Feng Shen
Academia Sinica (AS-IA-106-L01)
- Sheng-Feng Shen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Samuel L Díaz-Muñoz, University of California, Davis, United States
Version history
- Received: March 18, 2020
- Accepted: July 28, 2020
- Accepted Manuscript published: August 18, 2020 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: August 21, 2020 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2020, Tsai et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 2,011
- views
-
- 184
- downloads
-
- 5
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Ecology
Over two decades ago, an intercropping strategy was developed that received critical acclaim for synergizing food security with ecosystem resilience in smallholder farming. The push–pull strategy reportedly suppresses lepidopteran pests in maize through a combination of a repellent intercrop (push), commonly Desmodium spp., and an attractive, border crop (pull). Key in the system is the intercrop’s constitutive release of volatile terpenoids that repel herbivores. However, the earlier described volatile terpenoids were not detectable in the headspace of Desmodium, and only minimally upon herbivory. This was independent of soil type, microbiome composition, and whether collections were made in the laboratory or in the field. Furthermore, in oviposition choice tests in a wind tunnel, maize with or without an odor background of Desmodium was equally attractive for the invasive pest Spodoptera frugiperda. In search of an alternative mechanism, we found that neonate larvae strongly preferred Desmodium over maize. However, their development stagnated and no larva survived. In addition, older larvae were frequently seen impaled and immobilized by the dense network of silica-fortified, non-glandular trichomes. Thus, our data suggest that Desmodium may act through intercepting and decimating dispersing larval offspring rather than adult deterrence. As a hallmark of sustainable pest control, maize–Desmodium push–pull intercropping has inspired countless efforts to emulate stimulo-deterrent diversion in other cropping systems. However, detailed knowledge of the actual mechanisms is required to rationally improve the strategy, and translate the concept to other cropping systems.
-
- Ecology
The bacterium responsible for a disease that infects citrus plants across Asia facilitates its own proliferation by increasing the fecundity of its host insect.