Ecological Interactions and Macroevolution: A New Field with Old Roots

Abstract

Linking interspecific interactions (e.g., mutualism, competition, predation, parasitism) to macroevolution (evolutionary change on deep timescales) is a key goal in biology. The role of species interactions in shaping macroevolutionary trajectories has been studied for centuries and remains a cutting-edge topic of current research. However, despite its deep historical roots, classic and current approaches to this topic are highly diverse. Here, we combine historical and contemporary perspectives on the study of ecological interactions in macroevolution, synthesizing ideas across eras to build a zoomed-out picture of the big questions at the nexus of ecology and macroevolution. We discuss the trajectory of this important and challenging field, dividing research into work done before the 1970s, research between 1970 and 2005, and work done since 2005. We argue that in response to long-standing questions in paleobiology, evidence accumulated to date has demonstrated that biotic interactions (including mutualism) can influence lineage diversification and trait evolution over macroevolutionary timescales, and we outline major open questions for future research in the field. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Volume 51 is November 2, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Genome-wide macroevolutionary signatures of key innovations in butterflies colonizing new host plants

“…17). Opening up new niches, which can also expand due to diversification increases of the host-plant families through time [64][65][66] , would allow a continuous increase in diversification rates through time in a dynamic biotic environment, lending support to the primary role of ecological interactions in clade diversification over long timescales-a longcontentious issue 29 . Nonetheless, when taking into account the possibility that rates may have been heterogeneous across the phylogeny, we find that the diversification of three lineages (those feeding on Annonaceae, Lauraceae and Papaveraceae) had early rates of speciation that are higher than the ancestral rates, but slowed down through time.…”

“…However, a major knowledge gap lies in our understanding of the evolutionary links and drivers of host-plant shifts, genome-wide signatures of adaptations and processes of species diversification 28 . As noted by Hembry and Weber 29 , this implies that the questions of if, when and how coevolution has an impact on macroevolutionary dynamics remain open challenges. Here we address this gap with an emblematic group that was instrumental in Ehrlich and Raven's model-the swallowtail butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae).…”

Species interactions have predictable impacts on diversification

“…Our results suggest that there are general patterns across plants and animals, despite considerable uncertainty in the literature about how species interactions might impact diversification (e.g. Jablonski, 2008; Ricklefs, 2010; Weber et al ., 2017; Chomicki et al ., 2019; Hembry and Weber, 2020). Below we discuss the potential causes of these patterns, and their broader implications.…”

“…Several studies have reviewed the general topic of species interactions and macroevolution (e.g. Weber et al ., 2017; Hembry and Weber, 2020), but little consensus has emerged about the effect of different interaction types on diversification. For example, Jablonski (2008) reviewed paleontological and neontological studies, and showed that negative interactions at the organismal level (e.g.…”

Tempo and mode of morphological evolution are decoupled from latitude in birds

“…Disentangling these opposing effects is challenging because previous macroecological studies have generally been restricted to either relatively few traits or limited samples of species. In addition, previous studies have been impeded by the lack of suitable methods for detecting the impact of species interactions on trait evolution [40][41][42], although recent progress has been made in developing such methods for use in standard comparative analyses [20,22,24,43,44]. By incorporating species interactions directly into phylogenetic models of trait evolution, these developments overcome some of the issues faced by phylogenetic and trait approaches for studying community assembly that rely on overly simplistic comparisons to randomly assembled communities [43,45,46].…”