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Trophic cascades alter eco-evolutionary dynamics and body size evolution.

ABSTRACT: Trait evolution in predator-prey systems can feed back to the dynamics of interacting species as well as cascade to impact the dynamics of indirectly linked species (eco-evolutionary trophic cascades; EETCs). A key mediator of trophic cascades is body mass, as it both strongly influences and evolves in response to predator-prey interactions. Here, we use Gillespie eco-evolutionary models to explore EETCs resulting from top predator loss and mediated by body mass evolution. Our four-trophic-level food chain model uses allometric scaling to link body mass to different functions (ecological pleiotropy) and is realistically parameterized from the FORAGE database to mimic the parameter space of a typical freshwater system. To track real-time changes in selective pressures, we also calculated fitness gradients for each trophic level. As predicted, top predator loss generated alternating shifts in abundance across trophic levels, and, depending on the nature and strength in changes to fitness gradients, also altered trajectories of body mass evolution. Although more distantly linked, changes in the abundance of top predators still affected the eco-evolutionary dynamics of the basal producers, in part because of their relatively short generation times. Overall, our results suggest that impacts on top predators can set off transient EETCs with the potential for widespread indirect impacts on food webs.

SUBMITTER: Luhring TM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7735284 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Heritable trait variation is a central and necessary ingredient of evolution. Trait variation also directly affects ecological processes, generating a clear link between evolutionary and ecological dynamics. Despite the changes in variation that occur through selection, drift, mutation, and recombination, current eco-evolutionary models usually fail to track how variation changes through time. Moreover, eco-evolutionary models assume fitness functions for each trait and each ecological context, which often do not have empirical validation. We introduce a new type of model, Gillespie eco-evolutionary models (GEMs), that resolves these concerns by tracking distributions of traits through time as eco-evolutionary dynamics progress. This is done by allowing change to be driven by the direct fitness consequences of model parameters within the context of the underlying ecological model, without having to assume a particular fitness function. GEMs work by adding a trait distribution component to the standard Gillespie algorithm - an approach that models stochastic systems in nature that are typically approximated through ordinary differential equations. We illustrate GEMs with the Rosenzweig-MacArthur consumer-resource model. We show not only how heritable trait variation fuels trait evolution and influences eco-evolutionary dynamics, but also how the erosion of variation through time may hinder eco-evolutionary dynamics in the long run. GEMs can be developed for any parameter in any ordinary differential equation model and, furthermore, can enable modeling of multiple interacting traits at the same time. We expect GEMs will open the door to a new direction in eco-evolutionary and evolutionary modeling by removing long-standing modeling barriers, simplifying the link between traits, fitness, and dynamics, and expanding eco-evolutionary treatment of a greater diversity of ecological interactions. These factors make GEMs much more than a modeling advance, but an important conceptual advance that bridges ecology and evolution through the central concept of heritable trait variation.

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Trophic cascades alter eco-evolutionary dynamics and body size evolution.

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