Project description
A closer look at evolutionary ecology in multitrophic communities
As the world faces rapid environmental changes, understanding the intricate dynamics of multitrophic communities becomes increasingly urgent. Climate warming not only drives adaptive evolution within species it also alters trophic interactions and community structures. However, methodological challenges have hindered empirical studies to date, leaving critical gaps in our understanding. To address this, the ERC-funded EvolCommunity project experimentally evolves populations of aphids, duckweeds and daphnia in outdoor mesocosms. Researchers will quantify how warming climates shape community function and evolution in real time. They aim to determine how plant evolution influences community responses to climate change and assess reciprocal selection among interacting species. EvolCommunity will bridge evolutionary biology and community ecology to reveal the intricate mechanisms of community evolution.
Objective
In nature, organisms live in communities and form complex trophic interactions. Understanding how multitrophic communities evolve and respond to environmental changes is a fundamental and pressing challenge in face of global change. While research in evolutionary biology revealed that a warming climate can drive adaptive evolution of individual organisms in the community, studies from community ecology showed that a warming climate can alter trophic interactions and community structure, which in turn changes the (co)evolutionary trajectory of interacting species. Thus, integrating evolutionary and ecological responses is crucial to understand the climate responses of individual species and communities. However, methodological challenges have hampered empirical studies until now.
EvolCommunity will address these challenges by experimentally evolving populations of three interacting species (aphid, duckweed, and daphnia) in their native communities using outdoor mesocosms with different climate conditions. We will quantify how warming shapes the function and evolution of the multitrophic community in real-time. By manipulating climate-driven plant evolution, we will determine whether plant evolution alters the communitys response to climate change. We will also assess whether the interacting species coevolve in the community by quantifying the reciprocal selection imposed from their evolutionary changes. We will investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying (co)evolution using state-of-the-art genetic tools.
Using a combination of experimental evolution, community manipulation, and cutting-edge genetic and analytic tools, EvolCommunity will push the research boundaries of evolutionary ecology by revealing the mechanisms and processes of community evolution at work. The outcomes will open new research avenues in evolutionary ecology by establishing a new methodological framework that integrates evolutionary biology and community ecology in natural communities.
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
55122 Mainz
Germany