Abstract
It is well known that ecological and evolutionary processes act in concert while shaping biological communities. Diversification can, for example, arise through ecological opportunity and adaptive radiations and competition play an essential role in such diversification. Eco-evolutionary components of competition are thus important for our understanding of community assembly. Such understanding in turn facilitates interpretation of trait- and phylogenetic community patterns in the light of the processes that shape them. Here, I investigate the link between competition, diversification, and trait- and phylogenetic- community patterns using a trait-based model of adaptive radiations. I evaluate the paradigm that competition is an ecological process that drives large trait- and phylogenetic community distances through limiting similarity. Contrary to the common view, I identify low or in some cases counterintuitive relationships between competition and mean phylogenetic distances due to diversification late in evolutionary time and peripheral parts of niche space when competition is weak. Community patterns as a function of competition also change as diversification progresses as the relationship between competition and trait similarity among species can flip from positive to negative with time. The results thus provide novel perspectives on community assembly and emphasize the importance of acknowledging eco-evolutionary processes when interpreting community data.
Highlights
It is well known that ecological and evolutionary processes act in concert while shaping biological communities
This study aims to investigate the role of eco-evolutionary community assembly processes for the structure of competitive communities
Understanding the underpinning of such diversification is imperative for an understanding of trait- and phylogenetic community patterns
Summary
It is well known that ecological and evolutionary processes act in concert while shaping biological communities. Eco-evolutionary components of competition are important for our understanding of community assembly Such understanding in turn facilitates interpretation of trait- and phylogenetic community patterns in the light of the processes that shape them. Habitat filtering[22] and competition-driven limiting similarity[23] have been viewed as dominating assembly processes leading to high and low species similarity, respectively Such ideas underpin methods that quantify community phenotypic and phylogenetic structure to infer, for example, c ompetition[24]. I explicitly connect diversification processes with the mentioned patterns as they emerge and I frame my findings as theoretical expectations on which interpretation of community patterns can rely To this end, I use a trait-based simulation model of local adaptive radiations to study how trait- and phylogenetic patterns emerge as a consequence of competition-driven eco-evolutionary dynamics (Fig. 1). A mutant in trait space where many similar and abundant populations already exist or where resources are low tends to have low Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:19560 |
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