Theoretical Approaches in Evolutionary Ecology: Environmental Feedback as a Unifying Perspective

• Published in: The American naturalist Vol. 191; no. 1; p. 21
• Main Author: Lion, Sébastien
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2018
• Subjects: Adaptation, Biological; Biological Evolution; Ecology - methods; Feedback; Game Theory; Gene Frequency; Genetic Fitness; Models, Genetic; adaptive dynamics; separation of timescales; selection gradient; weak selection; Price equation; eco-evolutionary feedback loop
• DOI: 10.1086/694865

Evolutionary biology and ecology have a strong theoretical underpinning, and this has fostered a variety of modeling approaches. A major challenge of this theoretical work has been to unravel the tangled feedback loop between ecology and evolution. This has prompted the development of two main classes of models. While quantitative genetics models jointly consider the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of a focal population, a separation of timescales between ecology and evolution is assumed by evolutionary game theory, adaptive dynamics, and inclusive fitness theory. As a result, theoretical evolutionary ecology tends to be divided among different schools of thought, with different toolboxes and motivations. My aim in this synthesis is to highlight the connections between these different approaches and clarify the current state of theory in evolutionary ecology. Central to this approach is to make explicit the dependence on environmental dynamics of the population and evolutionary dynamics, thereby materializing the eco-evolutionary feedback loop. This perspective sheds light on the interplay between environmental feedback and the timescales of ecological and evolutionary processes. I conclude by discussing some potential extensions and challenges to our current theoretical understanding of eco-evolutionary dynamics.