Consumer co-evolution as an important component of the eco-evolutionary feedback

Teppo Hiltunen () and Lutz Becks
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Teppo Hiltunen: University of Helsinki
Lutz Becks: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Community Dynamics Group

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Rapid evolution in ecologically relevant traits has recently been recognized to significantly alter the interaction between consumers and their resources, a key interaction in all ecological communities. While these eco-evolutionary dynamics have been shown to occur when prey populations are evolving, little is known about the role of predator evolution and co-evolution between predator and prey in this context. Here, we investigate the role of consumer co-evolution for eco-evolutionary feedback in bacteria–ciliate microcosm experiments by manipulating the initial trait variation in the predator populations. With co-evolved predators, prey evolve anti-predatory defences faster, trait values are more variable, and predator and prey population sizes are larger at the end of the experiment compared with the non-co-evolved predators. Most importantly, differences in predator traits results in a shift from evolution driving ecology, to ecology driving evolution. Thus we demonstrate that predator co-evolution has important effects on eco-evolutionary dynamics.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6226

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