Eco‐evolution from deep time to contemporary dynamics: The role of timescales and rate modulators

Abstract

Eco‐evolutionary dynamics, or eco‐evolution for short, are often thought to involve rapid demography (ecology) and equally rapid heritable phenotypic changes (evolution) leading to novel, emergent system behaviours. We argue that this focus on contemporary dynamics is too narrow: Eco‐evolution should be extended, first, beyond pure demography to include all environmental dimensions and, second, to include slow eco‐evolution which unfolds over thousands or millions of years. This extension allows us to conceptualise biological systems as occupying a two‐dimensional time space along axes that capture the speed of ecology and evolution. Using Hutchinson's analogy: Time is the ‘theatre’ in which ecology and evolution are two interacting ‘players’. Eco‐evolutionary systems are therefore dynamic: We identify modulators of ecological and evolutionary rates, like temperature or sensitivity to mutation, which can change the speed of ecology and evolution, and hence impact eco‐evolution. Environmental change may synchronise the speed of ecology and evolution via these rate modulators, increasing the occurrence of eco‐evolution and emergent system behaviours. This represents substantial challenges for prediction, especially in the context of global change. Our perspective attempts to integrate ecology and evolution across disciplines, from gene‐regulatory networks to geomorphology and across timescales, from today to deep time.

Landscape structure drives eco-evolution in host-parasite systems

“…Our comparison of trait evolution across landscape structures allows us to highlight a mechanistic eco-evolutionary feedback loop (Fig. 4; Govaert et al 2019;Fronhofer et al 2023). Ecologically, landscape structure impacts dispersal patterns of individual hosts and their parasites, leading collectively to characteristic host-parasite spatial dynamics.…”

“…Importantly, spatial network structure also drives evolutionary processes: Evolution is impacted directly via gene flow within the network, but it can also be modulated indirectly via selection and drift due to the redistribution of population densities and genotypes within the spatial network (Fronhofer and Altermatt, 2017). Dispersal within the spatial network structure of landscapes is therefore a key eco-evolutionary driver (Govaert et al, 2019;Fronhofer et al, 2023).…”

Revisiting the geomorphological‐biological divide: An introspective biogeomorphological perspective

“…The more recent eco-evolutionary approach, which integrates ecological and evolutionary processes in a more explicit way, has attracted increasing interest and debate since the early 2000s (e.g., Bassar et al, 2021;Erwin, 2008;Hendry, 2017Hendry, , 2019Laland et al, 2016;Loreau, 2010;Matthews et al, 2011Matthews et al, , 2014Odling-Smee et al, 2003;Post & Palkovacs, 2009;Ware et al, 2019). Its underlying concept is based on the consideration that ecological and evolutionary changes can be congruent over short and long timescales and can generate stable and resilient emergent ecological structures and interaction networks (Fronhofer et al, 2023;Gibling & Davies, 2012;Govaert et al, 2019;Hendry, 2017;Matthews et al, 2014;Sultan, 2015). Eco-evolutionary models have helped establish reciprocal couplings between ecological processes, such as population growth, resource competition, trophic and other types of interaction networks and fluxes of matter and energy in modified landscapes, that occur at higher levels of ecosystems, and molecular structures and processes, such as DNA transcription to RNA, RNA translation into proteins, or gene mutation and expression, that occur at the lowest molecular level (Hendry, 2017).…”

“…By examining notions such as ‘organism’, ‘living entity’, ‘unit of selection’, ‘environment’, ‘internality, ‘externality’ and ‘matter and energy cycle’ from a different conceptual perspective, we can enhance our understanding of the relationship between life and geomorphological structures. The perspective is timely, given the current excitement surrounding eco‐evolutionary questions (Fronhofer et al, 2023; Hendry, 2017; Loreau, 2010). This could lead to new opportunities for collaboration between geomorphologists and evolutionary biologists, potentially resulting in improved biogeomorphological models.…”

A gene-regulatory network model for density-dependent and sex-biased dispersal evolution during range expansions

“…However, the genetic architecture of dispersal, which includes the number of underlying loci, their effects and how they interact with each other (e.g., epistasis and pleiotropy), needs to be considered to make predictions of eco-evolutionary dynamics during rapidly changing conditions, such as rapid habitat fragmentation or range expansion. Under such conditions of rapid change, the ecological consequences and feedbacks do not only depend on the evolutionary optima but also the rate of evolution (Fronhofer et al, 2023). For example the number of loci that govern an additive dispersal trait may modify how the rate at which a spatially structured population responds to habitat fragmentation (Saastamoinen et al, 2018) and also the dynamics of range shifts (Weiss-Lehman and Shaw, 2022).…”