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How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes.

Publication ,  Journal Article
DeLong, JP; Forbes, VE; Galic, N; Gibert, JP; Laport, RG; Phillips, JS; Vavra, JM
Published in: Ecology and evolution
January 2016

It is increasingly recognized that evolution may occur in ecological time. It is not clear, however, how fast evolution - or phenotypic change more generally - may be in comparison with the associated ecology, or whether systems with fast ecological dynamics generally have relatively fast rates of phenotypic change. We developed a new dataset on standardized rates of change in population size and phenotypic traits for a wide range of species and taxonomic groups. We show that rates of change in phenotypes are generally no more than 2/3, and on average about 1/4, the concurrent rates of change in population size. There was no relationship between rates of population change and rates of phenotypic change across systems. We also found that the variance of both phenotypic and ecological rates increased with the mean across studies following a power law with an exponent of two, while temporal variation in phenotypic rates was lower than in ecological rates. Our results are consistent with the view that ecology and evolution may occur at similar time scales, but clarify that only rarely do populations change as fast in traits as they do in abundance.

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Published In

Ecology and evolution

DOI

EISSN

2045-7758

ISSN

2045-7758

Publication Date

January 2016

Volume

6

Issue

2

Start / End Page

573 / 581

Related Subject Headings

  • 4102 Ecological applications
  • 3104 Evolutionary biology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0603 Evolutionary Biology
  • 0602 Ecology
 

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DeLong, J. P., Forbes, V. E., Galic, N., Gibert, J. P., Laport, R. G., Phillips, J. S., & Vavra, J. M. (2016). How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes. Ecology and Evolution, 6(2), 573–581. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1899
DeLong, John P., Valery E. Forbes, Nika Galic, Jean P. Gibert, Robert G. Laport, Joseph S. Phillips, and Janna M. Vavra. “How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes.Ecology and Evolution 6, no. 2 (January 2016): 573–81. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1899.
DeLong JP, Forbes VE, Galic N, Gibert JP, Laport RG, Phillips JS, et al. How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes. Ecology and evolution. 2016 Jan;6(2):573–81.
DeLong, John P., et al. “How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes.Ecology and Evolution, vol. 6, no. 2, Jan. 2016, pp. 573–81. Epmc, doi:10.1002/ece3.1899.
DeLong JP, Forbes VE, Galic N, Gibert JP, Laport RG, Phillips JS, Vavra JM. How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes. Ecology and evolution. 2016 Jan;6(2):573–581.
Journal cover image

Published In

Ecology and evolution

DOI

EISSN

2045-7758

ISSN

2045-7758

Publication Date

January 2016

Volume

6

Issue

2

Start / End Page

573 / 581

Related Subject Headings

  • 4102 Ecological applications
  • 3104 Evolutionary biology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0603 Evolutionary Biology
  • 0602 Ecology