The impact of dormancy on evolutionary branching

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the consequences of dormancy in the rare mutation' andlarge population' regime of stochastic adaptive dynamics. Starting from an individual-based micro-model, we first derive the polymorphic evolution sequence of the population, based on previous work by Baar and Bovier (2018). After passing to a second small mutations' limit, we arrive at the canonical equation of adaptive dynamics, and state a corresponding criterion for evolutionary branching, extending a previous result of Champagnat and M\'el\'eard (2011). The criterion allows a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the effects of dormancy in the well-known model of Dieckmann and Doebeli (1999) for sympatric speciation. In fact, a quite intuitive picture merges: Dormancy enlarges the parameter range for evolutionary branching, increases the carrying capacity and niche width of the post-branching sub-populations, and, depending on the model parameters, can either increase or decrease thespeed of adaptation' of populations. Finally, dormancy increases diversity by increasing the genetic distance between subpopulations.