 Ecological consequences of evolution in plant defenses in a metacommunityN. Loeuille and M.A. Leibold Theoretical Population Biology, 2008, vol. 74, issue 1, 34-45 Abstract: Dispersal can affect the assembly of local communities in a metacommunity as well as evolution of local populations in a metapopulation. These two processes may also affect each other in ways that have not yet been well studied and that may have novel effects on community structure. Here, we illustrate the interaction of these two processes on community structure with a model of adaptive evolutionary dynamics of plant defenses in a metacommunity food web involving multiple patches along a productivity gradient. We find an enhanced suite of adaptive plant types in our metacommunity model than is predicted in the absence of dispersal. We also find that this, and the movement of nutrients among patches via dispersal, alters patterns of food web architecture, trophic structure and diversity along the productivity gradient. Overall, our model illustrates that evolutionary and metacommunity dynamics may influence communities in complex interactive ways that may not be predicted by models that ignore either of these types of processes. Keywords: Plant defenses; Quantitative and qualitative defenses; Metacommunity; Food web structure; Adaptation; Evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:74:y:2008:i:1:p:34-45 DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2008.04.004 Access Statistics for this article Theoretical Population Biology is currently edited by Jeremy Van Cleve More articles in Theoretical Population Biology from Elsevier |
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