Lehtonen (2018) Behavioral Ecology

Abridgment

Competition for limited resources is a major source of divergent selection, which fuels speciation processes. Tinghitella et al. (2018) focus on empirical and theoretical evidence that supports the role of competition among males in speciation. They observe that the research field has to date been dominated by speciation mechanisms in sympatry. Nonetheless, both empirical and theoretical findings suggest that competition for mates is most likely to contribute to speciation when it interacts with divergent ecological selection pressures (Tinghitella et al. 2018).

Although Tinghitella et al. (2018) refer to “male competition” and “female mate choice,” to reflect how sex roles are most often represented in the literature, they also insightfully note that their conclusions should apply to “competitors” and “choosers,” regardless of sex. In parallel, many of the same processes may also be relevant for socially monogamous species in which both sexes in a pair together compete with other pairs for reproductive opportunities. To demonstrate this, I consider below each of the 3 major sources of compelling evidence, as singled out by Tinghitella et al. (2018), that male competition is a “potent evolutionary force capable of driving divergence.”