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Title: Destabilizing evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks drive empirical eco-evolutionary cycles
We develop a method to identify how ecological, evolutionary, and eco-evolutionary feedbacks influence system stability. We apply our method to nine empirically parametrized eco-evolutionary models of exploiter–victim systems from the literature and identify which particular feedbacks cause some systems to converge to a steady state or to exhibit sustained oscillations. We find that ecological feedbacks involving the interactions between all species and evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving only the interactions between exploiter species (predators or pathogens) are typically stabilizing. In contrast, evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving the interactions between victim species (prey or hosts) are destabilizing more often than not. We also find that while eco-evolutionary feedbacks rarely altered system stability from what would be predicted from just ecological and evolutionary feedbacks, eco-evolutionary feedbacks have the potential to alter system stability at faster or slower speeds of evolution. As the number of empirical studies demonstrating eco-evolutionary feedbacks increases, we can continue to apply these methods to determine whether the patterns we observe are common in other empirical communities.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1716803
PAR ID:
10275799
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume:
287
Issue:
1919
ISSN:
0962-8452
Page Range / eLocation ID:
20192298
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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