Abstract
Understanding how ecological and evolutionary processes interdependently structure biosphere dynamics is a major challenge in the era of worldwide ecosystem degradation. However, our knowledge of ‘eco-evolutionary feedbacks’ depends largely on findings from simple systems representing limited spatial scales and involving few species. Here we review recent conceptual developments for the understanding of multispecies coevolutionary processes and then discuss how new lines of concepts and methods will accelerate the integration of ecology and evolutionary biology. To build a research workflow for integrating insights into spatiotemporal dynamics of species-rich systems, we focus on the roles of ‘metacommunity hub’ species, whose population size and/or genetic dynamics potentially control landscape- or regional-scale phenomena. As large amounts of network data are becoming available with high-throughput sequencing of various host–symbiont, prey–predator, and symbiont–symbiont interactions, we suggest it is now possible to develop bases for the integrated understanding and management of species-rich ecosystems.
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Acknowledgements
We thank N. G. Hairston Jr, H. Hillebrand, T. Fukami, E. A. Mordecai, K. G. Peay, A. D. Letten, P.-J. Ke, M. Ushio, S. B. Munch, F. Maruyama, S. Fukuda and S. Sakaguchi for their insightful comments that improved the manuscript. This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant (26711026), JST PRESTO (11118), and the Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers of Cabinet Office, the Government of Japan (GS014) to H.T. M.Y. was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant (16K18618), P.R.G. by FAPESP (2009/54422-8) and CNPq, J.M.O. by the Danish Science Research Council (1323-00278), A.M. by JSPS KAKENHI Grant (25840164), T.Y. by JSPS KAKENHI Grant (26291088) and J.N.T. by NSF (DEB-1048333).
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H.T. designed the study and wrote the first draft based on discussion with M.Y. and J.N.T.; M.Y. and T.Y. made significant inputs from the perspective of eco-evolutionary feedbacks and added some paragraphs to the first draft. H.T., P.R.G., J.M.O. and J.N.T. revised the manuscript from the aspects of coevolutionary biology and ecological interaction networks based on discussion with all authors. A.M. added essential insights into the conceptual backgrounds of theoretical community ecology. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
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Supplementary Information
Supplementary Methods, Supplementary References (PDF 310 kb)
Supplementary Data 1
Network data used in the latent variable model analysis of human gut microbiome data. (XLSX 78 kb)
Supplementary Data 2
Network data used in the analysis of the local plant-fungus networks. (XLSX 191 kb)
Supplementary Data 3
Internal transcribed spacer sequences of the fungi analyzed in the analysis of local plant-fungus networks. (TXT 350 kb)
Supplementary Data 4
Network data used in the analysis of the metacommunity-level plant-fungus network. (XLSX 2225 kb)
Supplementary Data 5
Internal transcribed spacer sequences of the fungi that appeared in multiple local communities. (TXT 56 kb)
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Toju, H., Yamamichi, M., Guimarães, P. et al. Species-rich networks and eco-evolutionary synthesis at the metacommunity level. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 0024 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0024
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0024
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