scholarly journals Spatial eco-evolutionary feedbacks mediate coexistence in prey-predator systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo H. Colombo ◽  
Ricardo Martínez-García ◽  
Cristóbal López ◽  
Emilio Hernández-García

AbstractEco-evolutionary frameworks can explain certain features of communities in which ecological and evolutionary processes occur over comparable timescales. In the particular case of prey-predator systems, a combination of empirical and theoretical studies have explored this possibility, showing that the evolution of prey traits, predator traits or the coevolution of both can contribute to the stability of the community, as well as to the emergence of various types of population cycles. However, these studies overlook that interactions are spatially constrained, a crucial ingredient known to foster species coexistence per se. Here, we investigate whether evolutionary dynamics interacts with the spatial structure of a prey-predator community in which both species show limited mobility and predators perceptual ranges are subject to natural selection. In these conditions, our results unveil an eco-evolutionary feedback between species spatial mixing and predators perceptual range: different levels of species mixing select for different perceptual ranges, which in turn reshape the spatial distribution of preys and their interaction with predators. This emergent pattern of interspecific interactions feeds back to the efficiency of the various perceptual ranges, thus selecting for new ones. Finally, since prey-predator mixing is the key factor that regulates the intensity of predation, we explore the community-level implications of such feedback and show that it controls both coexistence times and species extinction probabilities.Author summaryEvolutionary processes occurring on temporal scales that are comparable to those of ecological change can result in reciprocal interactions between ecology and evolution termed eco-evolutionary feedbacks. Such interplay is clear in prey-predator systems, in which predation alters the distribution of resources (preys). In turn, changes in the abundance and spatial distribution of preys may lead to the evolution of new predation strategies, which may change again the properties of the prey population. Here, we investigate the interplay between limited mobility, species mixing, and finite perception in a prey-predator system. We focus on the case in which predator perceptual ranges are subject to natural selection and examine, via coexistence times and species extinction probabilities, whether the resulting eco-evolutionary dynamics mediates the stability of the community. Our results confirm the existence of such eco-evolutionary feedback and reveal its potential impact on community-level processes.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo H. Colombo ◽  
Ricardo Martínez-García ◽  
Cristóbal López ◽  
Emilio Hernández-García

AbstractEco-evolutionary frameworks can explain certain features of communities in which ecological and evolutionary processes occur over comparable timescales. Here, we investigate whether an evolutionary dynamics may interact with the spatial structure of a prey-predator community in which both species show limited mobility and predator perceptual ranges are subject to natural selection. In these conditions, our results unveil an eco-evolutionary feedback between species spatial mixing and predators perceptual range: different levels of mixing select for different perceptual ranges, which in turn reshape the spatial distribution of prey and its interaction with predators. This emergent pattern of interspecific interactions feeds back to the efficiency of the various perceptual ranges, thus selecting for new ones. Finally, since prey-predator mixing is the key factor that regulates the intensity of predation, we explore the community-level implications of such feedback and show that it controls both coexistence times and species extinction probabilities.


Author(s):  
Aaron M. Ellison ◽  
Lubomír Adamec

The material presented in the chapters of Carnivorous Plants: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution together provide a suite of common themes that could provide a framework for increasing progress in understanding carnivorous plants. All speciose genera would benefit from more robust, intra-generic classifications in a phylogenetic framework that uses a unified species concept. As more genomic, proteomic, and transcriptomic data accrue, new insights will emerge regarding trap biochemistry and regulation; interactions with commensals; and the importance of intraspecific variability on which natural selection works. Continued elaboration of field experiments will provide new insights into basic physiology; population biology; plant-animal and plant-microbe relationships; and evolutionary dynamics, all of which will aid conservation efforts and contribute to discussions of assisted migration as the climate continues to change.


1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 1275-1281 ◽  
Author(s):  
George W. Benz ◽  
Kevin S. Dupre

Five blue sharks (Prionace glauca) were examined for gill-infesting copepods. Three species of siphonostomatoid copepods were collected: Gangliopus pyriformis, Phyllothyreus cornutus, and Kroyeria carchariaeglauci. The spatial distribution of K. carchariaeglauci was analyzed. The number of K. carchariaeglauci per shark was positively related to gill surface area and host size. Copepods were unevenly distributed amongst hemibranchs; flanking hemibranchs could be arranged into three statistically homogeneous groups. Female K. carchariaeglauci typically attached themselves within the middle 40% of each hemibranch; males were more evenly dispersed. Eighty percent of all K. carchariaeglauci attached themselves to secondary lamellae, the remainder were in the underlying excurrent water channels. Most K. carchariaeglauci were located between 10 and 25 mm along the lengths of gill filaments. Overall, the spatial distribution of K. carchariaeglauci was quite specific in all study planes. Explanation of this distribution is set forth in terms of natural selection pressures; however, the equally plausible explanation that the distribution pattern exhibited by these copepods is phylogenetically determined and may have little to do with contemporary selective constraints should not be ignored.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 2176-2192 ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. Ramírez-Valiente ◽  
Nicholas J. Deacon ◽  
Julie Etterson ◽  
Alyson Center ◽  
Jed P. Sparks ◽  
...  

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1147
Author(s):  
Javier Falgueras-Cano ◽  
Juan-Antonio Falgueras-Cano ◽  
Andrés Moya

This paper presents an Evolutionary Cellular Automaton (ECA) that simulates the evolutionary dynamics of biological interactions by manipulating strategies of dispersion and associations between digital organisms. The parameterization of the different types of interaction and distribution strategies using configuration files generates easily interpretable results. In that respect, ECA is an effective instrument for measuring the effects of relative adaptive advantages and a good resource for studying natural selection. Although ECA works effectively in obtaining the expected results from most well-known biological interactions, some unexpected effects were observed. For example, organisms uniformly distributed in fragmented habitats do not favor eusociality, and mutualism evolved from parasitism simply by varying phenotypic flexibility. Finally, we have verified that natural selection represents a cost for the emergence of sex by destabilizing the stable evolutionary strategy of the 1:1 sex ratio after generating randomly different distributions in each generation.


Author(s):  
Andersonn Silveira Prestes

The establishment and spread of exotic species is a contemporary major concern. Alien species may become invasive in their new habitat, leading to both/either environmental and/or economic impacts. I briefly reviewed the literature in the last decade about the relationship of exotic species and native communities. I identified that professionals usually approach the subject in two main points of view: (1) researchers tend to point out the impacts of alien species on entire communities, evaluating if the relationship is positive, negative or neutral; (2) they focus on the eco-evolutionary processes involved in the introductions, the dynamics of invasion, and individual study cases. When evaluating the response of introductions to entire communities, evidence seems to be ambiguous and may support positive, negative or neutral relationship, especially depending on the scale approached. The unique eco-evolutionary pathways of each introduction may be a great shortcoming in the searching for generalities. On the other hand, advances have been made in understanding the dynamics of invasion on different lineages through a more selective/individualized approach. I suggest that the dynamics of invasion might be studied through a perspective in which different eco-evolutionary processes, levels of organization (from gene to entire communities), the history of the organism(s) and time are taken into account. Individual cases might be compared in attempt to understand how the relationship exotic and native works and in the search for generalities.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell A. Ligon ◽  
Christopher D. Diaz ◽  
Janelle L. Morano ◽  
Jolyon Troscianko ◽  
Martin Stevens ◽  
...  

Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics responsible for ornament diversification has been a longstanding challenge in evolutionary biology. However, comparing radically different ornaments across species, as well as different classes of ornaments within species, is a profound challenge to understanding diversification of sexual signals. Using novel methods and a unique natural history dataset, we explore evolutionary patterns of ornament evolution in a group - the birds-of-paradise - exhibiting dramatic phenotypic diversification widely assumed to be driven by sexual selection. Rather than the tradeoff between ornament types originally envisioned by Darwin and Wallace, we found positive correlations among cross-modal (visual/acoustic) signals indicating functional integration of ornamental traits into a composite unit - the courtship phenotype. Furthermore, given the broad theoretical and empirical support for the idea that systemic robustness - functional overlap and interdependency - promotes evolutionary innovation, we posit that birds-of-paradise have radiated extensively through ornamental phenotype space as a consequence of the robustness in the courtship phenotype that we document at a phylogenetic scale. We suggest that the degree of robustness in courtship phenotypes among taxa can provide new insights into the relative influence of sexual and natural selection on phenotypic radiations.Author SummaryAnimals frequently vary widely in ornamentation, even among closely related species. Understanding the patterns that underlie this variation is a significant challenge, requiring comparisons among drastically different traits - like comparing apples to oranges. Here, we use novel analytical approaches to quantify variation in ornamental diversity and richness across the wildly divergent birds-of-paradise, a textbook example of how sexual selection can profoundly shape organismal phenotypes. We find that color and acoustic complexity, along with behavior and acoustic complexity, are positively correlated across evolutionary time-scales. Positive covariation among ornament classes suggests that selection is acting on correlated suites of traits - a composite courtship phenotype - and that this integration may be partially responsible for the extreme variation we see in birds-of-paradise.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardo Gutierrez ◽  
Emma Wise ◽  
Steven Pullan ◽  
Christopher Logue ◽  
Thomas A. Bowden ◽  
...  

AbstractThe Amazon basin is host to numerous arthropod-borne viral pathogens that cause febrile disease in humans. Among these,Oropouche orthobunyavirus(OROV) is a relatively understudied member of the Peribunyavirales that causes periodic outbreaks in human populations in Brazil and other South American countries. Although several studies have described the genetic diversity of the virus, the evolutionary processes that shape the viral genome remain poorly understood. Here we present a comprehensive study of the genomic dynamics of OROV that encompasses phylogenetic analysis, evolutionary rate estimates, inference of natural selective pressures, recombination and reassortment, and structural analysis of OROV variants. Our study includes all available published sequences, as well as a set of new OROV genomes sequences obtained from patients in Ecuador, representing the first set of viral genomes from this country. Our results show that differing evolutionary processes on the three segments that encompass the viral genome lead to variable evolutionary rates and TMRCAs that could be explained by cryptic reassortment. We also present the discovery of previously unobserved putative N-linked glycosylation sites, and codons which evolve under positive selection on the viral surface proteins, and discuss the potential role of these features in the evolution of the virus through a combined phylogenetic and structural approach.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waqas Chaudhry ◽  
Nicole Vega ◽  
Adithi Govindan ◽  
Rodrigo Garcia ◽  
Esther Lee ◽  
...  

AbstractBacteriophages are deemed either lytic (virulent) or temperate, respectively depending on whether their genomes are transmitted solely horizontally, or both horizontally and vertically. To elucidate the ecological and evolutionary conditions under which natural selection will favor the evolution and maintenance of lytic or temperate modes of phage replication and transmission, we use a comprehensive mathematical model of the dynamics of temperate and virulent phage in populations of bacteria sensitive and resistant to these viruses. For our numerical analysis of the properties of this model, we use parameters estimated with the temperate bacteriophage Lambda, λ, it’s clear and virulent mutants, andE. colisensitive and resistant - refractory to these phages. Using batch and serial transfer population dynamic and reconstruction experiments, we test the hypotheses generated from this theoretical analysis. Based on the results of this jointly theoretical and experimental study, we postulate the conditions under which natural selection will favor the evolution and maintenance of lytic and temperate modes of phage replication and transmission. A compelling and novel prediction thisin silico,in vitro, andin plasticostudy makes is lysogenic bacteria from natural populations will be resistant-refractory to the phage for which they are lysogenic as well as lytic phage sharing the same receptors as these temperate viruses.


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