DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2547d7x3k
title: Ecological specialization, clonal diversity and local adaptation explain the co-existence of sexual and asexual grass thrips

description: The maintenance of sex is difficult to explain in the face of the
 demographic advantages of asexuality, especially when sexual and asexual
 lineages co-occur and compete. Here, we test if niche divergence and host
 plant specialization can contribute to the maintenance of sympatric
 populations of two closely related, sexual and asexual Aptinothrips grass
 thrips species. In mesocosm experiments, ecological niche and host plant
 specialization were inferred from thrips performance on different grass
 species used as hosts in natural populations. Sexual and asexual thrips
 performed best on different grass species, indicating niche
 differentiation. The asexual species was also characterized by a broader
 ecological niche than the sexual one. However, niche differentiation is
 unlikely to explain the maintenance of the two species in sympatry,
 because the reproductive rate of asexual females generally exceeded that
 of sexual ones. Surprisingly, the asexual but not sexual species showed
 geographic variation in the ecological niche. This geographic variation
 likely stems from variation in clonal assemblages among locations because
 different asexual genotypes have different ecological niches. Across
 natural populations, the performance of asexual females on a specific
 grass species was furthermore positively correlated with the abundance of
 that grass species, consistent with adaptation to locally abundant
 grasses. Altogether, our results suggest that niche differentiation
 contributes little to the co-occurrence of sexual and asexual grass thrips
 and that asexuality facilitates adaptation to a diversity of co-occurring
 host plants.
description: # Ecological specialization, clonal diversity and local adaptation explain
 the co-existence of sexual and asexual grass thrips Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.2547d7x3k](10.5061/dryad.2547d7x3k) ## Description of the
 data and file structure Thrips offspring counts and information on clones
 are provided in the excel files. The R file contains the scripts to
 analyse this data. \### Files and variables #### File:
 Local\_adaptation.csv \**Description: offspring number per clonal lineage
 per species per host plant ##### Variables * site:location * Plant:plant
 species * Rep:replicate number (per lineage, per plant) *
 Offspring:offspring count * Date:day sampled during fieldwork season *
 long:longitude * lat:latitude * alt:altitude * Festuca_rubra:coverage F.
 rubra * Poa_trivilais:coverage P. trivialis ## #### File:
 Ecological\_specialisation.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables *
 site:Location * plant: plant species * sp: thrips species * rep: replicate
 * fit: offspring number * batch: batch #### File: R\_scripts.docx
 **Description:** R scripts to run analyses ## Code/software R #### File:
 MatK\_JEB2025.fasta \**Description: sequencing data to identify the plant
 species. In standard Fasta format. ##### #### File:
 FS\_plantcouv\_publiJEB2025\_FINAL-sub.csv \**Description: data for figure
 3 (plant coverage) ##### Variables * PLANT_ID: Unique identifier for each
 morphotype observed within a 1x1 m plot. * SITE: Identifier of each
 individual sampling plot. * LOC: Name or code of the locality in which the
 plots are situated. * SP: Grass species assigned to each morphotype based
 on matK DNA sequencing. * COUV: Number of 10x10 cm squares (out of 100)
 within the 1x1 m plot that are covered by the morphotype. This provides an
 estimate of absolute coverage. * COUV/3: coverage of each morphotype per
 locality, calculated by averaging COUV values across the three plots
 within each locality (i.e., COUV divided by 3).