Many interspecifically territorial species interfere with each other reproductively, and in some cases, aggression towards heterospecifics may be an adaptive response to interspecific mate competition. This hypothesis was recently formalised in an agonistic character displacement (ACD) model which predicts that species should evolve to defend territories against heterospecific rivals above a threshold level of reproductive interference. To test this prediction, we parameterised the model with field estimates of reproductive interference for 32 sympatric damselfly populations and ran evolutionary simulations. Asymmetries in reproductive interference made the outcome inherently unpredictable in some cases, but 80% of the model's stable outcomes matched levels of heterospecific aggression in the field, significantly exceeding chance expectations. In addition to bolstering the evidence for ACD, this paper introduces a new, predictive approach to testing character displacement theory that, if applied to other systems, could help in resolving long-standing questions about the importance of character displacement processes in nature.

中文翻译：

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在野外预测对种间干扰的进化反应。

许多种间领土物种在繁殖上相互干扰，在某些情况下，对异种物种的侵略可能是对种间配偶竞争的适应性反应。该假说最近在激动性角色置换（ACD）模型中得到了形式化，该模型预测物种应进化以保护领土免受生殖干扰阈值以上的异源竞争。为了检验这一预测，我们对32个同胞豆娘种群的生殖干扰进行了野外估计，并对该模型进行了参数化处理，并进行了进化模拟。生殖干扰的不对称性在某些情况下使结果具有固有的不可预测性，但是该模型稳定结果的80％与该领域的异源攻击性相匹配，大大超出了预期的机会。