Eco-evolutionary dynamics in complex systems

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Lutz Becks
• Subject Area: Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2011 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 196963532

• Final Report Year: 2017

Final Report Abstract

The project ‘Eco-evolutionary dynamics in complex systems’ aimed to gain important new insights into the reciprocal interaction between evolutionary processes and population dynamics on the same time scale, with a focus on different levels of complexity. Within the project, with tested how different types of species interactions (predator-prey, host-virus, competition) and changes in the abiotic environment affects eco-evolutionary dynamics, as well as how ecoevolutionary dynamics affect indirectly selection on other traits, i.e., rates of sexual reproduction in predator and prey populations. To study this, we used experimental evolution, modelling and genomic analysis. We found that including coevolution does not alter the potential for eco-evolutionary dynamics. Instead we found, that the coevolution of antagonistic interacting species and its entanglement with the ecological dynamics can have fundamental consequences for the evolutionary trajectory because eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics can lead to continuous changes in selection and population sizes over time. Studying the effects of changes in the abiotic environment and spatial structure, we found that these changes could alter the rate of adaptation and the ecological dynamics, but not the potential for eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics. Furthermore, we provide evidence that eco-evolutionary dynamics can indirectly select for the maintenance of sex in a predator population, and that the interaction with a predator population can select for the maintenance of sex in the prey population either trough directional or fluctuating selection. To test for the underlying genomic changes in rapidly evolving prey populations exposed to predation, we conducted a study combining experimental evolution and functional genomic analysis.

Publications

• (2017) Rapid evolution of hosts begets species diversity at the cost of intraspecific diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (42) 11193–11198
  Frickel, Jens; Theodosiou, Loukas; Becks, Lutz
  
• 2014. Consumer co-evolution as an important component of the eco-evolutionary feedback. Nature Communications 5, 5226
  Hiltunen, T. & L. Becks
  
• 2015 Environmental fluctuations restrict eco-evolutionary dynamics in predator-prey system. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 282
  Hiltunen, T. Ayan, G. & L. Becks
  
• 2015. Use of ddPCR in experimental evolution studies. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 7, 340-351
  Koch, H., Jeschke, A. & L. Becks
  
• 2016. Eco-evolutionary dynamics in a coevolving host-virus system. Ecology Letters, 19, 450-459
  Frickel, J., Sieber, M. & L. Becks
  
• 2016. Eco-evolutionary dynamics select indirectly for sex in predator populations. Evolution, 70, 641-652
  Haafke, J., Abou Chakra, M. & L. Becks
  
• 2016. Sublethal streptomycin concentrations and lytic bacteriophage interactively promote resistance evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 372: 20160040
  Cairns, J., Becks, L., Jalasvuori, M. & T. Hiltunen
  
• 2017. Genomic evolution of bacterial populations under co-selection by antibiotics and phage. Molecular Ecology, 26, 1848-1859
  Cairns, J., Frickel, J., Jalasvuori, M., Hiltunen, T. & L. Becks
  
• 2017. The cost of facultative sex in a prey adapting to predation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 30, 210–220
  Koch, H. & L. Becks