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Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae
Species utilizing a wide range of resources are intuitively expected to be less efficient in exploiting each resource type compared to species which have developed an optimal phenotype for utilizing only one or a few resources. We report here the results of an empirical study whose aim was to test f...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3305315/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22438939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033506 |
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author | Barkae, Erez David Scharf, Inon Abramsky, Zvika Ovadia, Ofer |
author_facet | Barkae, Erez David Scharf, Inon Abramsky, Zvika Ovadia, Ofer |
author_sort | Barkae, Erez David |
collection | PubMed |
description | Species utilizing a wide range of resources are intuitively expected to be less efficient in exploiting each resource type compared to species which have developed an optimal phenotype for utilizing only one or a few resources. We report here the results of an empirical study whose aim was to test for a negative association between habitat niche breadth and foraging performance. As a model system to address this question, we used two highly abundant species of pit-building antlions varying in their habitat niche breadth: the habitat generalist Myrmeleon hyalinus, which inhabits a variety of soil types but occurs mainly in sandy soils, and the habitat specialist Cueta lineosa, which is restricted to light soils such as loess. Both species were able to discriminate between the two soils, with each showing a distinct and higher preference to the soil type providing higher prey capture success and characterizing its primary habitat-of-origin. As expected, only small differences in the foraging performances of the habitat generalist were evident between the two soils, while the performance of the habitat specialist was markedly reduced in the alternative sandy soil. Remarkably, in both soil types, the habitat generalist constructed pits and responded to prey faster than the habitat specialist, at least under the temperature range of this study. Furthermore, prey capture success of the habitat generalist was higher than that of the habitat specialist irrespective of the soil type or prey ant species encountered, implying a positive association between habitat niche-breadth and foraging performance. Alternatively, C. lineosa specialization to light soils does not necessarily confer upon its superiority in utilizing such habitats. We thus suggest that habitat specialization in C. lineosa is either an evolutionary dead-end, or, more likely, that this species' superiority in light soils can only be evident when considering additional niche axes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3305315 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-33053152012-03-21 Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae Barkae, Erez David Scharf, Inon Abramsky, Zvika Ovadia, Ofer PLoS One Research Article Species utilizing a wide range of resources are intuitively expected to be less efficient in exploiting each resource type compared to species which have developed an optimal phenotype for utilizing only one or a few resources. We report here the results of an empirical study whose aim was to test for a negative association between habitat niche breadth and foraging performance. As a model system to address this question, we used two highly abundant species of pit-building antlions varying in their habitat niche breadth: the habitat generalist Myrmeleon hyalinus, which inhabits a variety of soil types but occurs mainly in sandy soils, and the habitat specialist Cueta lineosa, which is restricted to light soils such as loess. Both species were able to discriminate between the two soils, with each showing a distinct and higher preference to the soil type providing higher prey capture success and characterizing its primary habitat-of-origin. As expected, only small differences in the foraging performances of the habitat generalist were evident between the two soils, while the performance of the habitat specialist was markedly reduced in the alternative sandy soil. Remarkably, in both soil types, the habitat generalist constructed pits and responded to prey faster than the habitat specialist, at least under the temperature range of this study. Furthermore, prey capture success of the habitat generalist was higher than that of the habitat specialist irrespective of the soil type or prey ant species encountered, implying a positive association between habitat niche-breadth and foraging performance. Alternatively, C. lineosa specialization to light soils does not necessarily confer upon its superiority in utilizing such habitats. We thus suggest that habitat specialization in C. lineosa is either an evolutionary dead-end, or, more likely, that this species' superiority in light soils can only be evident when considering additional niche axes. Public Library of Science 2012-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3305315/ /pubmed/22438939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033506 Text en Barkae et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Barkae, Erez David Scharf, Inon Abramsky, Zvika Ovadia, Ofer Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title | Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title_full | Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title_fullStr | Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title_full_unstemmed | Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title_short | Jack of All Trades, Master of All: A Positive Association between Habitat Niche Breadth and Foraging Performance in Pit-Building Antlion Larvae |
title_sort | jack of all trades, master of all: a positive association between habitat niche breadth and foraging performance in pit-building antlion larvae |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3305315/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22438939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033506 |
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