Benefit(s): Crown-of-Thorns are an important part of reef life and a driving force of ecological succession, contributing to coral reef diversity, fossil evidence shows the presence of Crown of thorns, but these outbreaks have increased in number and scope since the 1970's.
Similarly, large paracentric chromosomal inversions in A. gambiae [26] may maintain LD and differentiation over only parts of the genome, or may be a driving force in ecological population differentiation [27], [28].
From this interaction follows that divergent selection between ecological niches is a major driving force differentiating lineages until reproductive isolation occurs [ 17].
The driving force behind ecological speciation is thus divergent natural selection between environments or, in other words, reproductive isolation of populations by means of adaptation to different environments or niches [ 18, 19, 21, 27, 28].
Because D. suzukii feed on fresh fruits as opposed to rotting fruits and decaying matter, the microorganisms it encounters may be different from those encountered by most fruit-associated Drosophila; this ecological difference may be the driving force in altering the repertoire of defense systems.
The most visible aspect of urbanization is that more and more natural landscape is replaced by anthropogenic land cover/land use, which is the driving force of many ecological and environmental consequences such as urban heat islands.
Competition and mutualism are the two basic elements of interspecific relationship, and they are an important driving force in structuring ecological communities.
Our findings support the view that ecological differentiation may be an important driving force in the speciation of zooplankton.
Although the major driving force of diversification was ecological change, the process of diversification involved a subtle interplay between ecology, genetic evolution and learned culturally transmitted traits.
Although open ocean evolution is partially driven by vicariance, our findings support the view that ecological differentiation may also be a major driving force of speciation for zooplankton.
