Stability and Fluctuations in Complex Ecological Systems

From 08-12 August, 2022, 32 individuals participated in a workshop, Stability and Fluctuations in Complex Ecological Systems, at the Lorentz Center, located in Leiden, The Netherlands. An interdisciplinary dialogue between ecologists, mathematicians, and physicists provided a foundation of important problems to consider over the next 5-10 years. This paper outlines eight areas including (1) improving our understanding of the effect of scale, both temporal and spatial, for both deterministic and stochastic problems; (2) clarifying the different terminologies and definitions used in different scientific fields; (3) developing a comprehensive set of data analysis techniques arising from different fields but which can be used together to improve our understanding of existing data sets; (4) having theoreticians/computational scientists collaborate closely with empirical ecologists to determine what new data should be collected; (5) improving our knowledge of how to protect and/or restore ecosystems; (6) incorporating socio-economic effects into models of ecosystems; (7) improving our understanding of the role of deterministic and stochastic fluctuations; (8) studying the current state of biodiversity at the functional level, taxa level and genome level.Comment: 22 page

ENIGMA-anxiety working group : Rationale for and organization of large-scale neuroimaging studies of anxiety disorders

Altres ajuts: Anxiety Disorders Research Network European College of Neuropsychopharmacology; Claude Leon Postdoctoral Fellowship; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, 44541416-TRR58); EU7th Frame Work Marie Curie Actions International Staff Exchange Scheme grant 'European and South African Research Network in Anxiety Disorders' (EUSARNAD); Geestkracht programme of the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw, 10-000-1002); Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) program within the National Institute of Mental Health under the Intramural Research Program (NIMH-IRP, MH002781); National Institute of Mental Health under the Intramural Research Program (NIMH-IRP, ZIA-MH-002782); SA Medical Research Council; U.S. National Institutes of Health grants (P01 AG026572, P01 AG055367, P41 EB015922, R01 AG060610, R56 AG058854, RF1 AG051710, U54 EB020403).Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and disabling but seem particularly tractable to investigation with translational neuroscience methodologies. Neuroimaging has informed our understanding of the neurobiology of anxiety disorders, but research has been limited by small sample sizes and low statistical power, as well as heterogenous imaging methodology. The ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group has brought together researchers from around the world, in a harmonized and coordinated effort to address these challenges and generate more robust and reproducible findings. This paper elaborates on the concepts and methods informing the work of the working group to date, and describes the initial approach of the four subgroups studying generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobia. At present, the ENIGMA-Anxiety database contains information about more than 100 unique samples, from 16 countries and 59 institutes. Future directions include examining additional imaging modalities, integrating imaging and genetic data, and collaborating with other ENIGMA working groups. The ENIGMA consortium creates synergy at the intersection of global mental health and clinical neuroscience, and the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group extends the promise of this approach to neuroimaging research on anxiety disorders

Specialization, evolution and coexistence in a community context

Ecologie en evolutie zijn lang als twee gescheiden velden van onderzoek beschouwd, vanwege de algemene opvatting dat deze twee processen op verschillende tijdschalen plaatsvinden en elkaar niet kunnen beïnvloeden. In recente jaren is steeds meer bewijs voor snelle evolutie gevonden, waardoor een hernieuwde interesse is ontstaan in de interactie tussen ecologie en evolutie, ook bekend als eco-evolutionaire dynamica; en het is duidelijk geworden dat feedbacks tussen ecologie en evolutie resultaten kan opleveren die niet voorspeld zouden worden door elk proces apart in beschouwing te nemen. In dit proefschrift bestudeerde ik eco-evolutionaire dynamica in de context van trofische interacties in twee systemen: plant-herbivoor interacties en multiparasitoïd-gastheer interacties. Mijn voornaamste doel was het effect van eco-evolutionaire dynamica te bestuderen op de evolutie en coëxistentie van verschillende strategieën binnen het trofische niveau dat bestudeerd werd (verschillende specialisatie-strategieën in herbivoren; verdedigingsstrategieën in planten; en parasitisme-strategieën in parasitoïden). Ik ontdekte dat eco-evolutionaire dynamica vaak evolutionaire splitsing tot twee verschillende strategieën bevorderde, maar meestal stabiele coëxistentie (langdurig naast elkaar bestaan van soorten) verslechterde. Coëxistentie wordt vooral gedestabiliseerd wanneer er een sterke feedback is tussen evolutie en ecologische dynamica op beide trofische niveaus, wat voor sterke veranderingen in ecologische dynamica zorgt (bijvoorbeeld fluctuaties in populatiegroottes) die op hun beurt de selectiedruk beïnvloeden. Stabiele coëxistentie, aan de andere kant, lijkt vooral bevorderd te worden wanneer evolutie vooral competitie (en daarmee ecologische dynamica) binnen hetzelfde trofische niveau beïnvloedt

The importance of ecological costs for the evolution of plant defense against herbivory

Plant defense against herbivory comes at a cost, which can be either direct (reducing resources available for growth and reproduction) or indirect (through reducing ecological performance, for example intraspecific competitiveness). While direct costs have been well studied in theoretical models, ecological costs have received almost no attention. In this study we compare models with a direct trade-off (reduced growth rate) to models with an ecological trade-off (reduced competitive ability), using a combination of adaptive dynamics and simulations. In addition, we study the dependence of the level of defense that can evolve on the type of defense (directly by reducing consumption, or indirectly by inducing herbivore mortality (toxicity)), and on the type of herbivore against which the plant is defending itself (generalists or specialists). We find three major results: First, for both direct and ecological costs, defense only evolves if the benefit to the plant is direct (through reducing consumption). Second, the type of cost has a major effect on the evolutionary dynamics: direct costs always lead to a single optimal strategy against herbivores, but ecological costs can lead to branching and the coexistence of non-defending and defending plants; however, coexistence is only possible when defending against generalist herbivores. Finally, we find that fast-growing plants invest less than slow-growing plants when defending against generalist herbivores, as predicted by the Resource Availability Hypothesis, but invest more than slow-growing plants when defending against specialists. Our results clearly show that assumptions about ecological interactions are crucial for understanding the evolution of defense against herbivores

The effect of cryptic female choice on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites

Sex allocation theory for simultaneous hermaphrodites has focused primarily on the effects of sperm competition, but the role of mate choice has so far been neglected. We present a model to study the coevolution of cryptic female choice and sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites. We show that the mechanism of cryptic female choice has a strong effect on the evolutionary outcome: if individuals remove a fixed proportion of less-preferred sperm, the optimal sex allocation is more female biased (i.e. more biased towards egg production) than without cryptic female choice; conversely, if a fixed amount of sperm is removed, sex allocation is less female-biased than without cryptic female choice, and can easily become male biased (i.e. biased towards sperm production). Under male-biased sex allocation, hermaphroditism can become unstable and the population can split into pure males and hermaphrodites with a female-biased allocation. We discuss the idea that the evolution of sex allocation may depend on the outcome of sexual conflict over the fate of received sperm: the sperm donor may attempt to manipulate or by-pass cryptic female choice and the sperm recipient is expected to resist such manipulation. We conclude that cryptic female choice can have a strong influence on sex allocation in simultaneous hermaphrodites and strongly encourage empirical work on this question

The Role of Within-Host Competition for Coexistence in Multiparasitoid-Host Systems

Multiparasitism (females of multiple species parasitizing the same host) is a ubiquitous phenomenon in parasitoids, yet the role of within-host competition has been mostly ignored in multiparasitoid-host models. Here we study the effect of varying the degree of competition at different life stages: competition over oviposition sites (between-adult competition) and larval competition over resources within the host (within-host competition). We adapt a Nicholson-Bailey model to allow for varying levels of between-adult competition (varying the overlap in species distributions) and within-host competition (varying the number of offspring that can successfully emerge from a host). Surprisingly, while stronger between-adult competition reduces coexistence, stronger within-host competition promotes it. Asymmetric between-adult competition (a fecundity difference between the two species) reduces coexistence when compared to symmetric competition; this can be counteracted by asymmetric within-host competition (within-host competitive advantage of the lower-fecundity species), but only when within-host competition is strong and the correlation between the parasitoids' distributions is intermediate. We discuss our results in the context of the interaction between two parasitoid species, Nasonia vitripennis and Nasonia giraulti, which have strongly correlated distributions and high levels of multiparasitism in the field. We conclude that either low or asymmetric within-host competition is unlikely to explain their coexistence

Modelling inducible defences in predator-prey interactions: assumptions and dynamical consequences of three distinct approaches

Inducible defences against predation are widespread in the natural world, allowing prey to economise on the costs of defence when predation risk varies over time or is spatially structured. Through interspecific interactions, inducible defences have major impacts on ecological dynamics, particularly predator-prey stability and phase lag. Researchers have developed multiple distinct approaches, each reflecting assumptions appropriate for particular ecological communities. Yet, the impact of inducible defences on ecological dynamics can be highly sensitive to the modelling approach used, making the choice of model a critical decision that affects interpretation of the dynamical consequences of inducible defences. Here, we review three existing approaches to modelling inducible defences: Switching Function, Fitness Gradient and Optimal Trait. We assess when and how the dynamical outcomes of these approaches differ from each other, from classic predator-prey dynamics and from commonly observed eco-evolutionary dynamics with evolving, but non-inducible, prey defences. We point out that the Switching Function models tend to stabilise population dynamics, and the Fitness Gradient models should be carefully used, as the difference with evolutionary dynamics is important. We discuss advantages of each approach for applications to ecological systems with particular features, with the goal of providing guidelines for future researchers to build on