Data from: Rapid prey evolution can alter the structure of predator-prey communities

Although microevolution has been shown to play an important role in pairwise antagonistic species interactions, its importance in more complex communities has received little attention. Here, we used two Pseudomonas fluorescens prey bacterial strains (SBW25 and F113) and Tetrahymena thermophila protist predator to study how rapid evolution affects the structuring of predator–prey communities. Both bacterial strains coexisted in the absence of predation, and F113 was competitively excluded in the presence of both SBW25 and predator during the 24-day experiment, an initially surprising result given that F113 was originally poorer at growing, but more resistant to predation. However, this can be explained by SBW25 evolving greater antipredatory defence with a lower growth cost than F113. These results show that rapid prey evolution can alter the structure of predator–prey communities, having different effects depending on the initial composition of the evolving community. From a more applied perspective, our results suggest that the effectiveness of biocontrol bacteria, such as F113, could be weaker in communities characterized by intense bacterial competition and protist predation.尽管已有研究证实微进化（microevolution）在两两对抗性物种互作中扮演重要角色，但人们对其在更为复杂的群落中的重要性却关注不足。本研究选取两株荧光假单胞菌（Pseudomonas fluorescens）猎物细菌菌株（SBW25与F113），以及嗜热四膜虫（Tetrahymena thermophila）原生动物捕食者，旨在探究快速进化如何影响捕食者-猎物群落的结构构建。在无捕食者的环境中，两株细菌菌株可实现共存；而在为期24天的实验期间，当同时存在SBW25与捕食者时，F113会被竞争性排除——这一初始结果颇令人意外，因为F113原本生长能力较弱，但抗捕食能力更强。不过，该现象可通过SBW25进化出比F113生长成本更低的更强抗捕食防御机制得以解释。上述结果表明，猎物的快速进化能够改变捕食者-猎物群落的结构，且其影响会因进化群落的初始组成不同而存在差异。从更具应用价值的角度来看，我们的研究结果提示，诸如F113这类生防细菌的防控效果，在以剧烈细菌竞争与原生动物捕食为特征的群落中可能会有所减弱。