Sea level rise and the evolution of aggression on islands

Why aggressive traits evolve in some species but not in others is poorly understood. We modeled the population dynamics of the extinct Mauritius dodo and Rodrigues solitaire to examine divergent pathways in the evolution of aggression. Whereas the dodo conformed to island syndrome predictions of tameness, its sister-taxon the solitaire evolved strong sexual dimorphism and aggressive traits. We computed rates of change in island size from sea level modeling and connected island size change to population dynamics by integrating a Hawk-Dove game theory model for territory competition with a population model. We find that the rapid rate of decrease in island size likely was an important trigger for the onset of aggressive behavior and that aggressive behavior becomes fixed if a tipping point is reached where island size falls below a critical threshold.

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Publication Details

Journal
iScience
Published
2024-10-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.111236
Primary Topic
Plant and animal studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Sea level rise and the evolution of aggression on islands

James Croll, Anwar Janoo, Robin Aguilée, Leon P. A. M. Claessens et al.
iScience
Plant and animal studies
article

Sea level rise and the evolution of aggression on islands

James Croll, Anwar Janoo, Robin Aguilée, Leon P. A. M. Claessens, Kenneth F. Rijsdijk, Menno Schilthuizen, Johannes De Groeve, Julian P. Hume, Ben H. Warren, Rosemarie Kentie
article en

Abstract

Why aggressive traits evolve in some species but not in others is poorly understood. We modeled the population dynamics of the extinct Mauritius dodo and Rodrigues solitaire to examine divergent pathways in the evolution of aggression. Whereas the dodo conformed to island syndrome predictions of tameness, its sister-taxon the solitaire evolved strong sexual dimorphism and aggressive traits. We computed rates of change in island size from sea level modeling and connected island size change to population dynamics by integrating a Hawk-Dove game theory model for territory competition with a population model. We find that the rapid rate of decrease in island size likely was an important trigger for the onset of aggressive behavior and that aggressive behavior becomes fixed if a tipping point is reached where island size falls below a critical threshold.

iScienceVol. 27(11)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Naturalis Biodiversity Center (NL), Natural History Museum (GB), Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (FR), École Pratique des Hautes Études (FR), Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR), Maastricht University (NL), Sorbonne Université (FR), Institute for Biodiversity (DE), Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité (FR), Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NL), National Health Insurance Fund (RS), Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (FR), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR), Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (FR), University of Amsterdam (NL)
Yale University, National Geographic Society, Laboratoire d'Excellence TULIP, University of Oxford, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Life below water
Openalex Percentile: Top 87%
Plant and animal studies
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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