Experimental Evidence of an Eco-evolutionary Feedback during Adaptive Divergence

Matthews, Blake; Aebischer, Thierry; Sullam, Karen E.; Lundsgaard-Hansen, Bänz; Seehausen, Ole (2016). Experimental Evidence of an Eco-evolutionary Feedback during Adaptive Divergence. Current Biology, 26(4), pp. 483-489. Cell Press 10.1016/j.cub.2015.11.070

	Text Matthews et al. 2016_CurrBiol_Experimental evidence of an eco-evolutionary feedback during adaptive divergence.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (1MB)
Preview	Text Matthews et al_CurrentBiology_Final.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (2MB) | Preview

Differences in how organisms modify their environment can evolve rapidly and might influence adaptive population divergence [1, 2]. In a common garden experiment in aquatic mesocosms, we found that adult stickleback from a recently diverged pair of
lake and stream populations had contrasting effects on ecosystem metrics. These modifications were caused by both genetic and plastic differences between populations and were sometimes comparable in magnitude to those caused by the presence/
absence of stickleback. Lake and streamfish differentially affected the biomass of zooplankton and phytoplankton, the concentration of phosphorus, and the abundance of several prey (e.g., copepods) and non-prey (e.g., cyanobacteria) species. The adult mediated effects on mesocosm ecosystems influenced the survival and growth of a subsequent generation of juvenile stickleback reared in the same mesocosms.
The prior presence of adults decreased the overall growth rate of juveniles, and the prior presence of stream adults lowered overall juvenile survival. Among the survivors, lake juveniles grew faster than co-occurring stream juveniles, except in mesocosm ecosystems previously modified by adult lake fish that were reared on plankton. Overall, our results provide evidence for reciprocal interactions between ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary change (i.e., eco-evolutionary feedbacks) in the early stages of adaptive population divergence.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

178 since deposited on 11 Feb 2016
8 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item