Whole-genome data reveal the complex history of a diverse ecological community.

ABSTRACT: How widespread ecological communities assemble remains a key question in ecology. Trophic interactions between widespread species may reflect a shared population history or ecological fitting of local pools of species with very different population histories. Which scenario applies is central to the stability of trophic associations and the potential for coevolution between species. Here we show how alternative community assembly hypotheses can be discriminated using whole-genome data for component species and provide a likelihood framework that overcomes current limitations in formal comparison of multispecies histories. We illustrate our approach by inferring the assembly history of a Western Palearctic community of insect herbivores and parasitoid natural enemies, trophic groups that to

SUBMITTER: Bunnefeld L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6048486 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature