Lynn Govaert - Eco-evolutionary dynamics: toward a multi-species perspective

Abstract: Unprecedented environmental changes induce strong selection pressures on species. Studies have shown that species can respond to these changes via ecological and evolutionary processes. In addition, there is an increasing amount of studies showing that ecological and evolutionary processes can occur at similar temporal and spatial scales and might thus frequently interact. This has raised the awareness that these processes should not be studied in isolation from each other, but instead should be integrated if we attempt to better understand species responses to environmental change. Even more so, species are embedded within communities. Hence, environmental change does not act on single species, but acts simultaneously on all species within the community, giving rise to potentially complex eco-evolutionary dynamics occurring within communities. I will present a conceptual framework to address and study eco-evolutionary dynamics within communities based on the work by M. Vellend which showed that community ecology can be organized along analogous processes of evolutionary biology (i.e., selection, migration, drift and diversification). I argue that by explicitly considering interactions between these processes of evolutionary biology and community ecology, it may facilitate our understanding of eco-evolutionary dynamics in multi-species communities. Focusing on interactions between processes of evolutionary biology and community ecology may enable explorations of the full range of eco-evolutionary community dynamics, may provide a way forward to reveal generalities and formulate hypotheses about eco-evolutionary community dynamics and guide the design of novel theoretical models that explicitly take these interactions into account.

[farshadfattahi]

Great presentation. Marvelous. Thank you very much Lynn.