Data from: Evolution of camouflage drives rapid ecological change in an insect community

dc.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Colorado Boulder-Nosil, Patrik
dc.contributor.authorNosil, Patrik
dc.coverage.spatialLos Padres National Forest
dc.coverage.spatialCoast Range
dc.coverage.spatialCalifornia
dc.coverage.spatialSanta Barbara
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-29T14:03:18Z
dc.date.issued2013-09-26
dc.date.issued2013-09-26
dc.descriptionEvolutionary change in individual species has been hypothesized to have far-reaching consequences for entire ecological communities, and such coupling of ecological and evolutionary dynamics ("eco-evolutionary dynamics") has been demonstrated for a variety systems. However, the relative importance of evolutionary dynamics for ecological dynamics remains unclear. Here, we investigate how spatial patterns of local adaptation in the stick insect Timema cristinae, driven by natural selection, gene flow and founder effects, structure metapopulations, communities, and multitrophic interactions. Observations of a wild T. cristinae metapopulation show that locally imperfect camouflage reduces population size, and that the effect of such maladaptation is comparable to the effects of more traditional ecological factors, including habitat patch size and host-plant species identity. Field manipulations of local adaptation and bird predation support the hypothesis that maladaptation reduces population size through an increase in bird predation. Furthermore, these field experiments show that maladaptation in T. cristinae and consequent increase in bird predation reduce the pooled abundance and species richness of the co-occurring arthropod community, and ultimately cascade to decrease herbivory on host plants. An eco-evolutionary model of the observational data demonstrates that the demographic cost of maladaptation decreases habitat patch occupancy by T. cristinae but enhances metapopulation-level adaptation. The results demonstrate a pervasive effect of ongoing evolution in a spatial context on population and community dynamics. The eco-evolutionary model generates testable predictions about the influence of the spatial structure of the patch network on the abundance and adaptive camouflage evolution.
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s90t6
dc.identifier.urihttps://datakatalogi.helsinki.fi/handle/123456789/5623
dc.rights.licensecc-zero
dc.subjectcommunity structure
dc.subjectTimema cristinae
dc.subjectAdenostoma fasciculatum
dc.subjecteco-evolutionary dynamics
dc.subjectCeanothus spinosus
dc.subjectmetapopulation
dc.titleData from: Evolution of camouflage drives rapid ecological change in an insect community
dc.typedataset
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