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The role of the environment in eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics

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Theodosiou,  Loukas
Emmy-Noether-Group Community Dynamics, Department Evolutionary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;
IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Theodosiou, L. (2018). The role of the environment in eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics. PhD Thesis, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0003-B51A-4
Abstract
In my thesis, I studied the effect of environmental changes such as the
induction of abiotic stress and spatial structure in the link between evolution and
ecology with the aim to develop an understanding when and how often ecological
and evolutionary dynamics interplay to affect the fate of natural populations.
The first chapter is a conceptual work discussing the processes through
which abiotic stress can enhance or impede the link between evolution and
ecology. Here I synthesize the knowledge from the fields of evolutionary biology
and ecology to discuss the potential processes through which abiotic stress can
affect the link between evolution and ecology. I identify gaps in our knowledge and
propose further experimental and theoretical directions that need to be
investigated. This chapter has been an important driver for my thesis.
In the second chapter, I follow one of the experimental directions that I
propose in my first chapter. Based on the experimental model system, with the
alga Chlorella variabilis as a host and the virus PBCV-1, I combined a
mathematical and an experimental approach to test if abiotic stress can break the
link between resistance evolution and ecology through changes in the strength of
the host resistance-growth trade-off and host mortality rate. I use an experimental
approach to verify the predictions of my mathematical model that an abiotic
stressor could break the link between evolution and ecology by increasing the
strength of the trade-off between host resistance and growth rate and increasing
host mortality. This chapter underlines the importance of combining mathematical modelling approaches with experimental evolution. It is also a significant step in
developing a predictive understanding of when and how eco-evolutionary
dynamics might occur in nature.
In the third chapter, I extend the mathematical model of chapter two that
describes the host-virus community and I add a predator for the host as an
additional consumer for the algal host. My motivation is to investigate the role of
another environmental factor such as spatial structure for eco-evolutionary
feedback dynamics. Already in the first chapter I highlight the potential of dispersal
to affect the link between evolution and ecology and thus eco-evolutionary
feedback dynamics. In my chapter III, I model the eco-evolutionary dynamics of
the three species first in one patch and then I extend it to more complex spatial
scales of eight patches that are connected by dispersal. This chapter shows that
when there is spatial homogeneity, dispersal network structure has no significant
effect on the species eco-evolutionary dynamics as well as on species
coexistence. In addition, I test the effect of dispersal network structure in the
absence of eco-evolutionary dynamics (i.e., only ecological dynamics) and I find
that the species specific interactions play a more important role for species
coexistence compare to dispersal network structure. This chapter is an important
the first step towards testing more realistic cases and predictions from
metapopulation theory.