Destabilizing evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks drive empirical eco-evolutionary cycles. Issue 1919 (22nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cortez, Michael H.; Patel, Swati; Schreiber, Sebastian J.
• Is Part Of: Proceedings. Volume 287:Issue 1919(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-01-22
• Subjects: stability -- predator–prey -- population dynamics -- Red Queen dynamics; Biology -- Periodicals; 570.5
• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2298
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-8452

Abstract

Abstract : We develop a method to identify how ecological, evolutionary, and eco-evolutionary feedbacks influence system stability. We apply our method to nine empirically parametrized eco-evolutionary models of exploiter–victim systems from the literature and identify which particular feedbacks cause some systems to converge to a steady state or to exhibit sustained oscillations. We find that ecological feedbacks involving the interactions between all species and evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving only the interactions between exploiter species (predators or pathogens) are typically stabilizing. In contrast, evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving the interactions between victim species (prey or hosts) are destabilizing more often than not. We also find that while eco-evolutionary feedbacks rarely altered system stability from what would be predicted from just ecological and evolutionary feedbacks, eco-evolutionary feedbacks have the potential to alter system stability at faster or slower speeds of evolution. As the number of empirical studies demonstrating eco-evolutionary feedbacks increases, we can continue to apply these methods to determine whether the patterns we observe are common in other empirical communities.