Abstract
The loss of biodiversity is altering the structure of ecological networks; however, we are currently in a poor position to predict how these altered communities will affect the evolution of remaining populations. Theory on fitness landscapes provides a framework for predicting how selection alters the evolutionary trajectory and adaptive potential of populations, but often treats the network of interacting populations as a “black box.” Here, we integrate ecological networks and fitness landscapes to examine how changes in food‐web structure shape phenotypic evolution. We conducted a field experiment that removed a guild of larval parasitoids that imposed direct and indirect selection pressures on an insect herbivore. We then measured herbivore survival as a function of three key phenotypic traits to estimate directional, quadratic, and correlational selection gradients in each treatment. We used these selection gradients to characterize the slope and curvature of the fitness landscape to understand the direct and indirect effects of consumer loss on phenotypic evolution. We found that the number of traits under directional selection increased with the removal of larval parasitoids, indicating evolution was more constrained toward a specific combination of traits. Similarly, we found that the removal of larval parasitoids altered the curvature of the fitness landscape in such a way that tended to decrease the evolvability of the traits we measured in the next generation. Our results suggest that the loss of trophic interactions can impose greater constraints on phenotypic evolution. This indicates that the simplification of ecological communities may constrain the adaptive potential of remaining populations to future environmental change.
Highlights
The loss of biodiversity is rewiring the web of life; it is uncertain how this will affect the ability of remaining populations to evolve and adapt to future environments
The curvature of the fitness landscape is governed by the strength of stabilizing, disruptive, and correlational selection acting on each trait, which can alter the adaptive potential of a population through its effect on the G-matrix (Hansen and Houle 2008)
CONSUMER REMOVAL CONSTRAINS THE EVOLUTIONARY TRAJECTORY OF GALL MIDGES We found that the removal of larval parasitoids increased the number of gall midge traits under directional selection (3 of 3)
Summary
The loss of biodiversity is rewiring the web of life; it is uncertain how this will affect the ability of remaining populations to evolve and adapt to future environments. Resolution on how change in ecological communities shape phenotypic evolution is urgently needed though, given the rapid losses of biodiversity we are observing in the Anthropocene (Scheffers et al 2016) Ecological networks, such as food webs describing whoeats-whom, provide an explicit representation of the direct and indirect effects that emerge in a community of interacting species (Bascompte and Jordano 2014; McCann 2012). We integrate ecological networks and fitness landscapes to understand how selection imposed by ecological communities alter the evolutionary trajectory and adaptive potential of interacting populations (Hui et al 2018). The curvature of the fitness landscape is governed by the strength of stabilizing, disruptive, and correlational selection acting on each trait, which can alter the adaptive potential of a population through its effect on the G-matrix (Hansen and Houle 2008). If we want to predict how ecological communities shape phenotypic evolution, we must understand how ecological networks shape the fitness landscape of interacting populations
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