Phylogeny structures species' interactions in experimental ecological communities.

Species' traits and interactions are products of evolutionary history. Despite the long-standing hypothesis that closely related species possess similar traits, and thus experience stronger competition, measuring the effect of evolutionary history on the ecology of natural communities remains challenging. We propose a novel framework to test whether phylogeny influences patterns of coexistence and abundance of species assemblages.

Coevolution Creates Complex Mosaics across Large Landscapes.

The spatial distribution of populations can influence the evolutionary outcome of species interactions. The variation in direction and strength of selection across local communities creates geographic selection mosaics that, when combined with gene flow and genomic processes such as genome duplication or hybridization, can fuel ongoing coevolution. A fundamental problem to solve is how coevolution proceeds when many populations that vary in their ecological outcomes are connected across large landscapes.

Signatures of Microevolutionary Processes in Phylogenetic Patterns.

Phylogenetic trees are representations of evolutionary relationships among species and contain signatures of the processes responsible for the speciation events they display. Inferring processes from tree properties, however, is challenging. To address this problem, we analyzed a spatially-explicit model of speciation where genome size and mating range can be controlled.

Gene flow and metacommunity arrangement affects coevolutionary dynamics at the mutualism-antagonism interface.

Interspecific interactions are affected by community context and, as a consequence, show spatial variation in magnitude and sign. The selective forces imposed by interactions at the mutualism-antagonism interface are a consequence of the traits involved and their matching between species. If mutualistic and antagonistic communities are linked by gene flow, coevolution between a pair of interacting species is influenced by how selection varies in space.