Effects of habitat destruction on coevolving metacommunities

作者：Klementyna A. Gawecka, Fernando Pedraza, Jordi Bascompte · 发表于：Ecology Letters · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1111/ele.14118 · 被引用次数：18 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation、Evolution and Genetic Dynamics

Habitat destruction is a growing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The ecological consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation involve reductions in species abundance and even the extinction of species and their interactions. However, we do not yet understand how habitat loss alters the coevolutionary trajectories of the remaining species or how coevolution, in turn, affects their response to habitat loss. To investigate this, we develop a spatially explicit model which couples metacommunity and coevolutionary dynamics. We show that, by changing the size, composition and structure of local networks, habitat destruction increases the diversity of coevolutionary trajectories of mutualists across the landscape. Conversely, in antagonistic communities, some species increase while others reduce their spatial trait heterogeneity. Furthermore, we show that while coevolution dampens the negative effects of habitat destruction in mutualistic networks, its effects on the persistence of antagonistic communities tend to be smaller and less predictable.