Using populations of the bacterium Escherichia coli that have adaptively diversified into ecotypes exploiting different carbon resources, we show that when interspecific competition is relaxed, phenotypic distributions converge.When we reinstate competition, phenotypic distributions diverge. Following the dissemination of the concept, character displacement was viewed as an important force in structuring ecological communities, and biologists identified numerous examples. Ecological character displacement is an important adaptive process in generating biodiversity 15 (Schluter, 2000; Pfennig & Pfennig, 2010). One example is apparent competition [43,44]. Species interactions other than resource competition, however, could produce the same displacement patterns as ECD. Under such conditions, natural selection favors a divergence in the characters--morphology, ecology, behavior, or physiology--of the organisms. Ecological character displace- only with ecological character displacement and is essentially the model of Case and Taper (2000), extended to include hybridization independent of phenotype. We describe four different but related models for ecological and reproductive character displacement. While the debates bred skepticism, they also spurred in-terest in locating fresh examples and in applying rigorous tests to cases both new and old. The first goal of our study was to determine if ecological sorting and character displacement might occur in communities of Clarkia species that share pollinators in the southern foothills of the Sierra Nevada. logical character displacement could facilitate the process of speciation by adding an additional degree of reproduc-tive isolation between incipient species. character displacement (Figure I) [19]. Sixty‐one published cases of character displacement involving closely related species (congeners) make up the observational data set. The second is a model of reproductive character displacement; it differs from Lemmon et al. Character displacement is an evolutionary divergence that occurs when two similar species inhabit the same environment. A third pattern, species-for-species matching, is occasionally cited: the replicated, independent evolution of guild structure [2]. The role of reproductive character displacement or reinforcement in increased isolation has been shown in many examples in hybridizing taxa [16,30-37]. Character displacement is the term used to describe an evolutionary change that occurs when two similar species inhabit the same environment. We demonstrate a causal role for competition in ecological character displacement. The Models. I give an overview of the observational and experimental evidence for ecological character displacement in adaptive radiation. Results. the differences in prey consumption, the observed character dis-placement has a functional ecological correlate, and we can link changes in form with changes in function in this apparent example of character displacement. This process is due to “phenotypic evolution in a species ... For example, early theoretical work showed that character displacement promotes coexistence by The first deals only with ecological character displacement and is essentially the model of Case and Taper (2000), extended to include hybridization independent of phenotype.The second is a model of reproductive character displacement; it differs from Lemmon et al. When two closely related species come into contact, com-petitive interactions sometimes lead to morphological The appeal of character displacement remained high, nevertheless, despite uncertainty over its importance. The outcome is that 170 cases of ecological character displacement have now been described. 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