Eco-evolutionary dynamics in metacommunities: ecological inheritance, helping within species, and harming between species

Understanding selection on intra- and inter-specific interactions that take place in dispersal-limited communities is a challenge for ecology and evolutionary biology. The problem is that local demographic stochasticity generates eco-evolutionary dynamics that are generally too complicated to make tractable analytical investigations. Here, we circumvent this problem by approximating the selection gradient on a quantitative trait that influences local community dynamics, assuming that such dynamics are deterministic with a stable fixed point. We nonetheless incorporate unavoidable kin selection effects arising from demographic stochasticity. Our approximation reveals that selection depends on how an individual expressing a trait-change influences: (1) its own fitness and the fitness of its current relatives; and (2) the fitness of its downstream relatives through modifications of local ecological conditions (i.e., through ecological inheritance). Mathematically, the effects of ecologic...理解发生在扩散受限群落（dispersal-limited communities）中的种内与种间相互作用所承受的选择压力，是生态学与进化生物学领域的一项核心挑战。究其根源，局域种群统计随机性（demographic stochasticity）所催生的生态-进化动力学（eco-evolutionary dynamics）通常过于复杂，难以开展易处理的解析研究。对此，我们通过对影响局域群落动态的数量性状（quantitative trait）的选择梯度（selection gradient）进行近似建模，规避了这一难题，前提假设为此类动态属于具备稳定不动点的确定性过程。尽管如此，我们仍纳入了由种群统计随机性引发的不可避免的亲缘选择（kin selection）效应。我们的近似模型揭示，选择压力取决于携带性状改变的个体如何影响以下两个方面：(1) 自身及其当前所在群体中亲属的适合度（fitness）；以及(2) 其后代亲属通过改造局域生态条件（即通过生态继承（ecological inheritance））所获得的适合度。在数学层面，生态……的效应