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. 2014 Dec 17;5(1):176–195. doi: 10.1002/ece3.1347

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© 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Example individual selection surfaces illustrating possible combinations of niche availability and niche discordance for scenarios involving an ancestral population (individual selection surface in blue) and a dispersing colonist population (individual selection surface in red). The dashed black curve in each panel represents the initial phenotype distribution of the colonist population (equal to the ancestral distribution). For each hypothetical example, we provide a plausible biological scenario and the relative values of mean population fitness for the phenotype already present in the community () and the new phenotype previously absent (). (A) The two populations have equivalent high values of mean population fitness (high niche availability) and nearly identical selection surfaces (low niche discordance). (B) Mean population fitness is initially much lower in the colonist population (low niche availability), with strong, divergent selection across populations (high niche discordance). (C) The two populations have equivalent high values of mean population fitness (high niche availability), and strongly divergent selection surfaces (high niche discordance). (D) Mean population fitness is much lower in the colonist population (low niche availability), and the selection surfaces are virtually identical (low niche discordance).

Inline graphic — Example individual selection surfaces illustrating possible combinations of niche availability and niche discordance for scenarios involving an ancestral population (individual selection surface in blue) and a dispersing colonist population (individual selection surface in red). The dashed black curve in each panel represents the initial phenotype distribution of the colonist population (equal to the ancestral distribution). For each hypothetical example, we provide a plausible biological scenario and the relative values of mean population fitness for the phenotype already present in the community () and the new phenotype previously absent (). (A) The two populations have equivalent high values of mean population fitness (high niche availability) and nearly identical selection surfaces (low niche discordance). (B) Mean population fitness is initially much lower in the colonist population (low niche availability), with strong, divergent selection across populations (high niche discordance). (C) The two populations have equivalent high values of mean population fitness (high niche availability), and strongly divergent selection surfaces (high niche discordance). (D) Mean population fitness is much lower in the colonist population (low niche availability), and the selection surfaces are virtually identical (low niche discordance).