In general, individuals who survive to reproduce have genotypes that work relatively well under local conditions. Migrating or dispersing offspring elsewhere is likely to decrease an individual's or its offspring's fitness, not to mention the intrinsic costs and risks of dispersal. Gene flow into a population can counteract gene frequency changes because of selection, imposing a limit on local adaptation. In addition, the migrant flow tends to be higher from densely populated to sparsely populated areas. Thus, although the potential for adaptation might be greatest in poor and sparsely populated environments, gene flow will counteract selection more strongly in such populations. Recent papers, both theoretical and empirical, have clarified the important role of migration in evolution, affecting spatial patterns, species ranges and adaptation to the environment; in particular, by emphasizing the crucial interaction between evolutionary and demographic processes.

/pdf/gene-flow-and-the-limits-to-natural-selection-9k8be6fseq.pdf

Gene flow and the limits to natural selection

Understanding the relative abundance of species in plant communities is an unsolved problem
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Mechanisms such as competition, resource partitioning5, dispersal ability10 and predation tolerance6,7,8,9 do not adequately explain relative abundance under field conditions11,12. Recent work suggests that interactions between plants and soil microbes is important13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21. Here I show that such interaction explains a significant proportion of the variance in the relative abundance of species in plant communities. Rare plants exhibited a relative decrease in growth on ‘home’ soil in which pathogens had had a chance to accumulate, whereas invasive plants benefited from interactions with mycorrhizal fungi. Some plant species accumulate pathogens quickly and maintain low densities as a result of the accumulation of species-specific pathogens, whereas others accumulate species-specific pathogens more slowly and do not experience negative feedback until plant densities reach high levels13,15,21. These results indicate that plants have different abilities to influence their abundance by changing the structure of their soil communities, and that this is an important regulator of plant community structure.

Feedback with soil biota contributes to plant rarity and invasiveness in communities.

Although spatial variability in distributions of soil organisms is generally regarded as random noise, this variability often has a predictable spatial structure. Recent studies have provided evidence that a spatially explicit approach to soil ecology can enable identification of factors that drive the spatial heterogeneity of populations and activities of soil organisms, at scales ranging from millimeters to hundreds of meters. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that spatial soil ecology can yield new insights with regard to understanding the factors that maintain and regulate soil biodiversity, as well as to how the spatial distributions of soil organisms influence both plant growth and plant community structure.

Spatial soil ecology

Understanding how terrestrial ecosystems function requires a combined aboveground–belowground approach, because of the importance of feedbacks that occur between herbivores, producers, and the decomposer subsystem. In this paper, we identify several mechanisms by which herbivores can indirectly affect decomposer organisms and soil processes through altering the quantity and quality of resources entering the soil. We show that these mechanisms are broadly similar in nature for both foliar and root herbivory, regardless of whether they operate in the short term as a result of physiological responses of individual plants to herbivore attack or long-term following alteration of plant community structure by herbivores and subsequent changes in the quality of litter inputs to soil. We propose that a variety of possible mechanisms is responsible for the idiosyncratic nature of herbivore effects on soil biota and ecosystem function; positive, negative, or neutral effects of herbivory are possible depending upon the balance of these different mechanisms. However, we predict that positive effects of herbivory on soil biota and soil processes are most common in ecosystems of high soil fertility and high consumption rates, whereas negative effects are most common in unproductive ecosystems with low consumption rates. The significance of multiple-species herbivore communities is also emphasized, and we propose that if resource use complementarity among herbivore species or functional groups leads to greater total consumption of phytomass, and thus greater net herbivory, then both positive and negative consequences of increasing herbivore diversity for belowground properties and processes are theoretically possible. Research priorities are highlighted and include a need for comparative studies of herbivore impacts on above- and belowground processes across ecosystems of varying productivity, as well as a need for experimental testing of the influence of antiherbivore defense compounds on complex multitrophic interactions in the rhizosphere and the significance of multiple herbivore species communities on these plant–soil interactions.

Herbivore-mediated linkages between aboveground and belowground communities

Body size and temperature are the two most important variables affecting nearly all biological rates and times. The relationship of size and temperature to development is of particular interest, because during ontogeny size changes and temperature often varies. Here we derive a general model, based on first principles of allometry and biochemical kinetics, that predicts the time of ontogenetic development as a function of body mass and temperature. The model fits embryonic development times spanning a wide range of egg sizes and incubation temperatures for birds and aquatic ectotherms (fish, amphibians, aquatic insects and zooplankton). The model also describes nearly 75% of the variation in post-embryonic development among a diverse sample of zooplankton. The remaining variation is partially explained by stoichiometry, specifically the whole-body carbon to phosphorus ratio. Development in other animals at other life stages is also described by this model. These results suggest a general definition of biological time that is approximately invariant and common to all organisms.

/pdf/effects-of-size-and-temperature-on-developmental-time-4tqdnko0la.pdf

Effects of size and temperature on developmental time

We analyzed the dynamics of dominant plant species in a grazed grassland over 17 years, and investigated whether local shifts in these dominant species, leading to vegetation mosaics, could be attributed to interactions between plants and soil-borne pathogens. We found that Festuca rubra and Carex arenaria locally alternated in abundance, with different sites close together behaving out of phase, resulting in a shifting mosaic. The net effect of killing all soil biota on the growth of these two species was investigated in a greenhouse experiment using gamma radiation, controlling for possible effects of sterilization on soil chemistry. Both plant species showed a strong net positive response to soil sterilization, indicating that pathogens (e.g., nematodes, pathogenic fungi) outweighed the effect of mutualists (e.g., mycorrhizae). This positive growth response towards soil sterilization appeared not be due to effects of sterilization on soil chemistry. Growth of Carex was strongly reduced by soil-borne pathogens (86% reduction relative to its growth on sterilized soil) on soil from a site where this species decreased during the last decade (and Festuca increased), while it was reduced much less (50%) on soil from a nearby site where it increased in abundance during the last decade. Similarly, Festuca was reduced more (67%) on soil from the site where it decreased (and Carex increased) than on soil from the site where it increased (55%, the site where Carex decreased). Plant-feeding nematodes showed high small-scale variation in densities, and we related this variation to the observed growth reductions in both plant species. Carex growth on unsterilized soil was significantly more reduced at higher densities of plant-feeding nematodes, while the growth reduction in Festuca was independent of plant-feeding nematode densities. At high plant-feeding nematode densities, growth of Carex was reduced more than Festuca, while at low nematode densities the opposite was found. Each plant species thus seems to be affected by different (groups of) soil-borne pathogens. The resulting interaction web of plants and soil-borne pathogens is discussed. We hypothesize that soil disturbances by digging ants and rabbits may explain the small-scale variation in nematode densities, by locally providing "fresh" sand. We conclude that soil-borne pathogens may contribute to plant diversity and spatial mosaics of plants in grasslands.

Small-scale shifting mosaics of two dominant grassland species: the possible role of soil-borne pathogens.

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Small-scale shifting mosaics of two dominant grassland species: the possible role of soil-borne pathogens.