At present, the disciplines of evolutionary biology and ecosystem science are weakly integrated. As a result, we have a poor understanding of how the ecological and evolutionary processes that create, maintain, and change biological diversity affect the flux of energy and materials in global biogeochemical cycles. The goal of this article was to review several research fields at the interfaces between ecosystem science, community ecology and evolutionary biology, and suggest new ways to integrate evolutionary biology and ecosystem science. In particular, we focus on how phenotypic evolution by natural selection can influence ecosystem functions by affecting processes at the environmental, population and community scale of ecosystem organization. We develop an eco-evolutionary model to illustrate linkages between evolutionary change (e.g. phenotypic evolution of producer), ecological interactions (e.g. consumer grazing) and ecosystem processes (e.g. nutrient cycling). We conclude by proposing experiments to test the ecosystem consequences of evolutionary changes.

A microbiome’s composition, stability, and response to perturbations are governed by its community interaction matrix, typically quantified through pairwise competition. However, in natural environments, microbes encounter multispecies interactions, complex conditions, and unculturable members. Moreover, evolutionary and ecological processes occur on overlapping timescales, making intra-species clonal diversity a critical but poorly understood factor influencing community interactions. Here, we present Dynamic Covariance Mapping (DCM), a general approach to infer microbiome interaction matrices from abundance time-series data. By combining DCM with high-resolution chromosomal barcoding, we quantify inter- and intra-species interactions during E. coli colonization in the mouse gut under three contexts: germ-free, antibiotic-perturbed, and innate microbiota. We identify distinct temporal phases in susceptible communities: (1) destabilization upon E. coli invasion, (2) partial recolonization of native bacteria, and (3) a quasi-steady state where E. coli sub-lineages coexist with resident microbes. These phases are shaped by specific interactions between E. coli clones and community members, emphasizing the dynamic and lineage-specific nature of microbial networks. Our results reveal how ecological and evolutionary dynamics jointly shape microbiome structure over time. The DCM framework provides a scalable method to dissect complex community interactions and is broadly applicable to bacterial ecosystems both in vitro and in situ. Coupling of ecology and evolution in microbiomes can lead to time-dependent community interactions. Here, the authors introduce Dynamic Covariance Mapping (DCM), an approach to quantify the community matrix and, with high-resolution lineage tracking, show how inter- and intra-species interactions shape the dynamics of mouse gut colonization.

Summary Evolution can happen rapidly and frequently. This realization has motivated a rethinking of ecological and evolutionary time‐scales and their overlap, and stimulated research on processes at their interface. This premise lays at the heart of eco‐evolutionary dynamics, a relatively recent field redeveloping how we conceive of ecological and evolutionary processes. Classical evolutionary theory and empirical evidence has generally supported a gradualist view of evolution as occurring on much longer time‐scales than ecological processes. The systematic documentation of rapid evolution beginning in the 1970s served as a catalyst to question this basic assumption. The commonness of rapid evolution suggests that ecological and evolutionary processes often occur at the same time‐scale, which may allow them to interact. As a new field, eco‐evolutionary dynamics faces some important challenges. First, the field is primarily driven by theoretical research and empirical work on organisms with simple, short life cycles, typically animals, and mostly performed under controlled conditions. Secondly, it is unclear whether interactions between ecology and evolution are driven through a few common mechanisms, or whether all interactions are context dependent. Thirdly, there is a lack of eco‐evolutionary research at higher organizational levels (e.g. ecosystem and landscape), although it is at those levels that the impact of evolution on our greatest conservation challenges may be most

Changes in plant diversity and abundance due to land-use modifications can induce plant-pollinator trophic cascades, potentially leading to long-term shifts in pollination services. Our ability to mediate such loss of pollination services through informed landscape management is limited by insufficient understanding of long-term adaptations of wild pollinators to land-use, especially when accounting for rapid evolution of traits involved in plant-pollinator interactions. To address this issue, we here use a conceptual trait-based eco-evolutionary model to explore how shifts in plant abundance within agricultural landscapes affect: (1) pollinator populations through bottom-up cascades, and (2) plant populations through top-down effects of eco-evolutionary pollinator responses. Our results align with the expectation that specialist pollinators tend to be vulnerable to plant abundance changes over ecological timescales. This vulnerability is exacerbated by limited evolutionary adaptation of specialist pollinators. In contrast, generalists are more resilient to ecological change due to their broader tolerance and, notably, a better capacity for adaptive responses. Such adaptive responses can, however, lead to a significant loss of functional diversity, potentially outweighing the compensatory effects of evolutionary rescue in mitigating negative land-use change impacts. For specialists, the loss of functional diversity equals the loss of species diversity in our model. By contrast, the loss of functional diversity for pollinators with a more generalised feeding strategy, especially for moderate generalists, may exceed the loss of species diversity to the point that the functional properties of pollinators completely overlap. Our findings demonstrate how resource specialisation influences eco-evolutionary responses of pollinators to land-use changes. To ensure stable pollination services, conservation and landscape management strategies must account for limited adaptive capacity of specialists while acknowledging the risk of adaptive loss of functionality in generalists.

study the abiotic and biotic factors that influence evolutionary processes, and evolution can be rapid, occurring on ecological timescales as short as one Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'house' and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural Ecology (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'house' and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, and natural history. Ecology is a branch of biology, and is the study of abundance, biomass, and distribution of organisms in the context of the environment. It encompasses life processes, interactions, and adaptations; movement of materials and energy through living communities; successional development of ecosystems; cooperation, competition, and predation within and between species; and patterns of biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem processes. Ecology has practical applications in… Ecology and evolutionary biology are sister disciplines. Natural selection, life history, development, adaptation, populations, and inheritance thread equally into both. In this framework, the analytical tools of ecologists and evolutionists overlap as they study life through phylogenetics or Linnaean taxonomy. There is no sharp boundary separating ecology from evolution, and they differ more in their areas of applied focus. Both explain properties and processes across different spatial or temporal scales of organization. Ecologists study the abiotic and biotic factors that influence evolutionary processes, and evolution can be rapid, occurring on ecological timescales as short as one generation.