4.6 Article

Under niche construction: an operational bridge between ecology, evolution, and ecosystem science

Journal

ECOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS
Volume 84, Issue 2, Pages 245-263

Publisher

WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/13-0953.1

Keywords

niche construction; eco-evolutionary dynamics; trophic interactions; coevolution; eco-evolutionary feedbacks; alternative stable states; ecosystem engineering; diffuse coevolution

Categories

Funding

  1. KNAW [ISK/6445/VPP]
  2. NIOO
  3. Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences
  4. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
  5. SNF [31003A-125006]
  6. KU Leuven Research Fund Excellence Center [PF/2010/007]

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All living organisms modify their biotic and abiotic environment. Niche construction theory posits that organism-mediated modifications to the environment can change selection pressures and influence the evolutionary trajectories of natural populations. While there is broad support for this proposition in general, there is considerable uncertainty about how niche construction is related to other similar concepts in ecology and evolution. Comparative studies dealing with certain aspects of niche construction are increasingly common, but there is a troubling lack of experimental tests of the core concepts of niche construction theory. Here, we propose an operational framework to evaluate comparative and experimental evidence of the evolutionary consequences of niche construction, and suggest how such research can improve our understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics in ecosystems. We advocate for a shift toward explicit experimental tests of how organism-mediated environmental change can influence the selection pressures underlying evolutionary responses, as well as targeted field-based comparative research to identify the mode of evolution by niche construction and assess its importance in natural populations.

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