Evolutionary repeatability of emergent properties of ecological communities

Most species belong to ecological communities where their interactions give rise to emergent community-level properties, such as diversity and productivity. Understanding and predicting how these properties change over time has been a major goal in ecology, with important practical implications for sustainability and human health. Less attention has been paid to the fact that community-level properties can also change because member species evolve. Yet, our ability to predict long-term eco-evolutionary dynamics hinges on how repeatably community-level properties change as a result of species evolution. Here, we review studies of evolution of both natural and experimental communities and make the case that community-level properties at least sometimes evolve repeatably. We discuss challenges faced in investigations of evolutionary repeatability. In particular, only a handful of studies enable us to quantify repeatability. We argue that quantifying repeatability at the community level is critical for approaching what we see as three major open questions in the field: (i) Is the observed degree of repeatability surprising? (ii) How is evolutionary repeatability at the community level related to repeatability at the level of traits of member species? (iii) What factors affect repeatability? We outline some theoretical and empirical approaches to addressing these questions. Advances in these directions will not only enrich our basic understanding of evolution and ecology but will also help us predict eco-evolutionary dynamics.This article is part of the theme issue 'Interdisciplinary approaches to predicting evolutionary biology'.

Automated summary

Most species are part of ecological communities that exhibit emergent community-level properties. Understanding how these properties change over time and how member species evolution contributes to these changes is important for sustainability and human health. This review highlights the repeatability of community-level properties through evolution and discusses the challenges and open questions in quantifying this repeatability. Approaches to address these questions are outlined, emphasizing the potential for advancing our understanding of evolution and ecology and predicting eco-evolutionary dynamics.