The tenet that ecological opportunity drives adaptive diversification has been central to theories of speciation since Darwin, yet no widely accepted definition or mechanistic framework for the concept currently exists. We propose a definition for ecological opportunity that provides an explicit mechanism for its action. In our formulation, ecological opportunity refers to environmental conditions that both permit the persistence of a lineage within a community, as well as generate divergent natural selection within that lineage. Thus, ecological opportunity arises from two fundamental elements: (1) niche availability, the ability of a population with a phenotype previously absent from a community to persist within that community and (2) niche discordance, the diversifying selection generated by the adaptive mismatch between a population's niche‐related traits and the newly encountered ecological conditions. Evolutionary response to ecological opportunity is primarily governed by (1) spatiotemporal structure of ecological opportunity, which influences dynamics of selection and development of reproductive isolation and (2) diversification potential, the biological properties of a lineage that determine its capacity to diversify. Diversification under ecological opportunity proceeds as an increase in niche breadth, development of intraspecific ecotypes, speciation, and additional cycles of diversification that may themselves be triggered by speciation. Extensive ecological opportunity may exist in depauperate communities, but it is unclear whether ecological opportunity abates in species‐rich communities. Because ecological opportunity should generally increase during times of rapid and multifarious environmental change, human activities may currently be generating elevated ecological opportunity – but so far little work has directly addressed this topic. Our framework highlights the need for greater synthesis of community ecology and evolutionary biology, unifying the four major components of the concept of ecological opportunity.
Adaptive capacity is a topic at the forefront of environmental change research with roots in both social, ecological, and evolutionary science. It is closely related to the evolutionary biology concept of adaptive potential. In this systematic literature review, we: (1) summarize the history of these topics and related fields; (2) assess relationship(s) between the concepts among disciplines and the use of the terms in climate change research, and evaluate methodologies, metrics, taxa biases, and the geographic scale of studies; and (3) provide a synthetic conceptual framework to clarify concepts. Bibliometric analyses revealed the terms have been used most frequently in conservation and evolutionary biology journals, respectively. There has been a greater growth in studies of adaptive potential than adaptive capacity since 2001, but a greater geographical extent of adaptive capacity studies. Few studies include both, and use is often superficial. Our synthesis considers adaptive potential as one process contributing to adaptive capacity of complex systems, notes “sociological” adaptive capacity definitions include actions aimed at desired outcome (i.e., policies) as a system driver whereas “biological” definitions exclude such drivers, and suggests models of adaptive capacity require integration of evolutionary and social–ecological system components.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1757324
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10386457
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Global Change Biology
- Volume:
- 27
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 1354-1013
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 2656-2668
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The concept of adaptive capacity has received significant attention within social-ecological and environmental change research. Within both the resilience and vulnerability literatures specifically, adaptive capacity has emerged as a fundamental concept for assessing the ability of social-ecological systems to adapt to environmental change. Although methods and indicators used to evaluate adaptive capacity are broad, the focus of existing scholarship has predominately been at the individual- and household- levels. However, the capacities necessary for humans to adapt to global environmental change are often a function of individual and societal characteristics, as well as cumulative and emergent capacities across communities and jurisdictions. In this paper, we apply a systematic literature review and co-citation analysis to investigate empirical research on adaptive capacity that focus on societal levels beyond the household. Our review demonstrates that assessments of adaptive capacity at higher societal levels are increasing in frequency, yet vary widely in approach, framing, and results; analyses focus on adaptive capacity at many different levels (e.g. community, municipality, global region), geographic locations, and cover multiple types of disturbances and their impacts across sectors. We also found that there are considerable challenges with regard to the ‘fit’ between data collected and analytical methods used in adequately capturing the cross-scale and cross-level determinants of adaptive capacity. Current approaches to assessing adaptive capacity at societal levels beyond the household tend to simply aggregate individual- or household-level data, which we argue oversimplifies and ignores the inherent interactions within and across societal levels of decision-making that shape the capacity of humans to adapt to environmental change across multiple scales. In order for future adaptive capacity research to be more practice-oriented and effectively guide policy, there is a need to develop indicators and assessments that are matched with the levels of potential policy applications.
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Abstract Background Although anthropogenic climate change poses existential challenges for Indigenous communities in the Arctic, these challenges are not entirely unprecedented. Over many generations, Arctic peoples have developed a wide range of behavioral strategies to navigate environmental change and uncertainty, and these strategies provide a foundation for contemporary adaptation.
Aims In this article, we focus on mixed cash‐subsistence economies and the social networks that underlie them in Alaska. The patterns of food production, labor exchange, and food sharing in subsistence‐oriented communities throughout Alaska are driven by the productivity of keystone households who regularly harvest and share resources within and between communities.
Materials & Methods Building on previous research suggesting the critical importance of these networks to community resilience, we use network analysis to investigate whether patterns in resource transfers between households are associated with subsistence harvest diversity—the diversity of species harvested by a household unit. We use exponential random graph models to describe the structure of a sharing network from Aniak, Alaska, and model the links between harvest productivity, harvest diversity, and household position in this network.
Results Our results indicate that both productivity and diversity are positively associated with network connections, and that productivity alone provides an incomplete model of network structure.
Discussion We suggest that subsistence harvest diversity may play a unique role in supporting adaptive capacity and resilience by maintaining the productivity of keystone households despite changing environments and sustaining social network structures that circulate resources throughout the community. Harvest diversity may also serve as a broad indicator of Indigenous ecological knowledge and a tangible representation of cultural practices, values, and worldviews that underlie subsistence in Alaska.
Conclusion Greater attention to harvest diversity is important for understanding how subsistence networks adapt to environmental change and uncertainty linked to social and ecological dynamics of anthropogenic climate change.
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Abstract Decades of research have illuminated the underlying ingredients that determine the scope of evolutionary responses to climate change. The field of evolutionary biology therefore stands ready to take what it has learned about influences upon the rate of adaptive evolution—such as population demography, generation time, and standing genetic variation—and apply it to assess if and how populations can evolve fast enough to “keep pace” with climate change. Here, our review highlights what the field of evolutionary biology can contribute and what it still needs to learn to provide more mechanistic predictions of the winners and losers of climate change. We begin by developing broad predictions for contemporary evolution to climate change based on theory. We then discuss methods for assessing climate‐driven contemporary evolution, including quantitative genetic studies, experimental evolution, and space‐for‐time substitutions. After providing this mechanism‐focused overview of both the evidence for evolutionary responses to climate change and more specifically, evolving to keep pace with climate change, we next consider the factors that limit actual evolutionary responses. In this context, we consider the dual role of phenotypic plasticity in facilitating but also impeding evolutionary change. Finally, we detail how a deeper consideration of evolutionary constraints can improve forecasts of responses to climate change and therefore also inform conservation and management decisions.
This article is categorized under:
Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Observed Ecological Changes
Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Extinction Risk
Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change
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