Spatial eco-evolutionary feedbacks mediate coexistence in prey-predator systems

Abstract

Eco-evolutionary frameworks can explain certain features of communities in which ecological and evolutionary processes occur over comparable timescales. Here, we investigate whether an evolutionary dynamics may interact with the spatial structure of a prey-predator community in which both species show limited mobility and predator perceptual ranges are subject to natural selection. In these conditions, our results unveil an eco-evolutionary feedback between species spatial mixing and predators perceptual range: different levels of mixing select for different perceptual ranges, which in turn reshape the spatial distribution of prey and its interaction with predators. This emergent pattern of interspecific interactions feeds back to the efficiency of the various perceptual ranges, thus selecting for new ones. Finally, since prey-predator mixing is the key factor that regulates the intensity of predation, we explore the community-level implications of such feedback and show that it controls both coexistence times and species extinction probabilities. 2 that ecological and evolutionary changes occur on very different time scales, the connection between ecology and evolution 3 is unidirectional, with the former driving the later. Therefore, the first attempts to explain species coexistence neglected the 4 role of evolutionary processes and relied exclusively on ecological factors, such as species neutrality 1 , frequency-dependent 5 interactions 2 , and environmental heterogeneity, either in space or in time [3][4][5][6][7] . 6 More recently, however, evidences that ecological and evolutionary processes can occur at congruent time-scales have been 7 found 8-10 . This result suggests that both processes can affect each other and establish 'eco-evolutionary feedbacks' (EEFs) that 8 may alter the ecological dynamics and the stability of communities. Due to rapid evolution, the frequency of the genotypes and 9 their associated phenotypes may change, within a population, as fast as ecological variables, such as population sizes or spatial 10 distributions, and affect their dynamics. In turn, these new ecological configurations can redirect the evolutionary process [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] . 11 The consequences of these EEFs at the community level have been studied mainly in single-species populations and simple 12 two-species communities 13 . In prey-predator systems, empirical studies have shown that both prey and predator traits can 13 evolve over ecological time scales, leading to EEFs that alter some features of the dynamics of both populations 18, 19 . For 14 instance, in a rotifer-algal system, rapid prey evolution induced by oscillatory predator abundance can drive antiphase in 15 prey-predator cycles 14 . Theoretical investigations have also suggested that prey-predator coevolution can induce a rich set of 16 behaviors in population abundances, including reversion in the predator-prey cycles 20 . Another family of studies has focused 17 on the role of EEFs on the stability of the community, showing tha...

How range residency and long-range perception change encounter rates

“…Therefore, when the OU mean encounter rate,Ẽ OU , has a local minimum at q = 0, an intermediate range of perception q > 0 may maximize the encounter rate. The existence of such optimal mid-range perception aligns with results from our own previous studies in which we investigated the interplay between long-range information gathering and foraging efficiency in different contexts (Martínez-García et al, 2013Fagan et al, 2017;Colombo et al, 2019). Because Eq.…”

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of cooperation in the presence of policing

“…However, recent studies show that ecological changes and species evolution can occur on the same time scale, i.e., ecological and evolutionary dynamics are intertwined [63]. Ecological changes can significantly impact evolutionary dynamics, and the resulting evolutionary changes can feedback on the ecological dynamics [64]. We are at a stage, where the consideration of intimate interlinking between ecology and evolution is a necessary step for the understanding of the processes that regulate biodiversity [65].…”