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The finding that adaptive evolution can often be substantial enough to alter ecological dynamics challenges traditional views of community ecology that ignore evolution. Here, we propose that evolution might commonly alter both local and regional processes of community assembly. We show how adaptation can substantially affect community assembly and that these effects depend on regional (metacommunity) factors, including environmental heterogeneity and its spatial structure. In particular, early colonists can often arrive from a nearby community, adapt to local conditions, and subsequently alter the establishment or abundance of late-arriving species, often producing an evolutionary priority effect. We also discuss how interaction type and relative rates of colonization, evolution, and community interactions determine divergent community outcomes. We describe new conceptual approaches that provide insights into these dynamics and statistical methods that can better evaluate their importance. Overall, we demonstrate that accounting for adaptation during community assembly opens up novel ways for making progress on fundamental questions in community ecology. 

Abstract. Biogeochemistry has an important role to play in manyenvironmental issues of current concern related to global change and air,water, and soil quality. However, reliable predictions and tangibleimplementation of solutions, offered by biogeochemistry, will need furtherintegration of disciplines. Here, we refocus on how further developing andstrengthening ties between biology, geology, chemistry, and social scienceswill advance biogeochemistry through (1) better incorporation of mechanisms,including contemporary evolutionary adaptation, to predict changingbiogeochemical cycles, and (2) implementing new and developing insights fromsocial sciences to better understand how sustainable and equitable responsesby society are achieved. The challenges for biogeochemists in the 21stcentury are formidable and will require both the capacity to respond fast topressing issues (e.g., catastrophic weather events and pandemics) andintense collaboration with government officials, the public, andinternationally funded programs. Keys to success will be the degree to whichbiogeochemistry can make biogeochemical knowledge more available to policymakers and educators about predicting future changes in the biosphere, ontimescales from seasons to centuries, in response to climate change andother anthropogenic impacts. Biogeochemistry also has a place infacilitating sustainable and equitable responses by society. 

Historically, many biologists assumed that evolution and ecology acted independently because evolution occurred over distances too great to influence most ecological patterns. Today, evidence indicates that evolution can operate over a range of spatial scales, including fine spatial scales. Thus, evolutionary divergence across space might frequently interact with the mechanisms that also determine spatial ecological patterns. Here, we synthesize insights from 500 eco-evolutionary studies and develop a predictive framework that seeks to understand whether and when evolution amplifies, dampens, or creates ecological patterns. We demonstrate that local adaptation can alter everything from spatial variation in population abundances to ecosystem properties. We uncover 14 mechanisms that can mediate the outcome of evolution on spatial ecological patterns. Sometimes, evolution amplifies environmental variation, especially when selection enhances resource uptake or patch selection. The local evolution of foundation or keystone species can create ecological patterns where none existed originally. However, most often, we find that evolution dampens existing environmental gradients, because local adaptation evens out fitness across environments and thus counteracts the variation in associated ecological patterns. Consequently, evolution generally smooths out the underlying heterogeneity in nature, making the world appear less ragged than it would be in the absence of evolution. We end by highlighting the future research needed to inform a fully integrated and predictive biology that accounts for eco-evolutionary interactions in both space and time.

 

Biodiversity in natural systems can be maintained either because niche differentiation among competitors facilitates stable coexistence or because equal fitness among neutral species allows for their long-term cooccurrence despite a slow drift toward extinction. Whereas the relative importance of these two ecological mechanisms has been well-studied in the absence of evolution, the role of local adaptive evolution in maintaining biological diversity through these processes is less clear. Here we study the contribution of local adaptive evolution to coexistence in a landscape of interconnected patches subject to disturbance. Under these conditions, early colonists to empty patches may adapt to local conditions sufficiently fast to prevent successful colonization by other preadapted species. Over the long term, the iteration of these local-scale priority effects results in niche convergence of species at the regional scale even though species tend to monopolize local patches. Thus, the dynamics evolve from stable coexistence through niche differentiation to neutral cooccurrence at the landscape level while still maintaining strong local niche segregation. Our results show that neutrality can emerge at the regional scale from local, niche-based adaptive evolution, potentially resolving why ecologists often observe neutral distribution patterns at the landscape level despite strong niche divergence among local communities.

 

Abstract Adaptive radiation plays a fundamental role in our understanding of the evolutionary process. However, the concept has provoked strong and differing opinions concerning its definition and nature among researchers studying a wide diversity of systems. Here, we take a broad view of what constitutes an adaptive radiation, and seek to find commonalities among disparate examples, ranging from plants to invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and remote islands to lakes and continents, to better understand processes shared across adaptive radiations. We surveyed many groups to evaluate factors considered important in a large variety of species radiations. In each of these studies, ecological opportunity of some form is identified as a prerequisite for adaptive radiation. However, evolvability, which can be enhanced by hybridization between distantly related species, may play a role in seeding entire radiations. Within radiations, the processes that lead to speciation depend largely on (1) whether the primary drivers of ecological shifts are (a) external to the membership of the radiation itself (mostly divergent or disruptive ecological selection) or (b) due to competition within the radiation membership (interactions among members) subsequent to reproductive isolation in similar environments, and (2) the extent and timing of admixture. These differences translate into different patterns of species accumulation and subsequent patterns of diversity across an adaptive radiation. Adaptive radiations occur in an extraordinary diversity of different ways, and continue to provide rich data for a better understanding of the diversification of life.