Integrating selection, niche, and diversification into a hierarchical conceptual framework
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FORUM PAPER
Integrating selection, niche, and diversification into a hierarchical conceptual framework Davi Mello Cunha Crescente Alves 1,2 & José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho 1 & Fabricio Villalobos 3
Received: 30 March 2016 / Accepted: 22 July 2016 # Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik 2016
Abstract Recently, new phylogenetic comparative methods have been proposed to test for the association of biological traits with diversification patterns, with species ecological Bniche^ being one of the most studied traits. In general, these methods implicitly assume natural selection acting at the species level, thus implying the mechanism of species selection. However, natural selection acting at the organismal level could also influence diversification patterns (i.e., effect macroevolution). Owing to our scarce knowledge on multi-level selection regarding niche as a trait, we propose a conceptual model to discuss and guide the test between species selection and effect macroevolution within a hierarchical framework. We first assume niche as an organismal as well as a species’ trait that interacts with the environment and results in specieslevel differential fitness. Then, we argue that niche heritability, a requirement for natural selection, can be assessed by its phylogenetic signal. Finally, we propose several predictions that can be tested in the future by disentangling both types of evolutionary processes (species selection or effect macroevolution). Our framework can have important implications for guiding analyses that aim to understand the hierarchical perspective of evolution.
* Davi Mello Cunha Crescente Alves [email protected]
1
Laboratório de Ecologia Teórica e Síntese, Programa de Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil
2
Depto de Ecologia, ICB, Universidade Federal de Goiás, CP 131, 74001-970 Goiânia, GO, Brazil
3
Laboratório de Ecologia Teórica e Síntese, Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brasil. Red de Biología Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecología, A.C., Carretera antigua a Coatepec 351, El Haya, 91070 Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Keywords Individual-based models . Niche conservatism . Macroevolution . Phylogenetic comparative methods . Species selection . Trait
Introduction After the modern evolutionary synthesis that unified the ideas of Mendel and Darwin in the 1930s and 1940s, evolutionary dynamics through deep time began to be thoroughly discussed under the mechanism of natural selection (Simpson 1944). However, the focus remained on explaining macroevolutionary patterns as a result of within-species, microevolutionary processes (Gould 1982). Some authors questioned this classic perspective of selective process acting at the organismal level (i.e., organisms within species), considering it insufficient to explain macroevolutionary patterns, and suggested an expansion to the modern synthesis (Eldredge and Gould 1972). One aspect of this expansion was based on a hierarchical view of evolution, which considers processes acting at different lev
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