Biodiversität

Individual-level variation arising from responses to environmental gradients influences population and community dynamics. How such responses empirically relate to the mechanisms that govern species coexistence is, however, poorly understood. Previous results from lake phytoplankton communities suggested that the evenness of organismal traits in multiple dimensions increases with resource limitation, possibly due to resource partitioning at the individual level. Here we experimentally tested the emergence of this pattern by growing two phytoplankton species (Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and Microcystis aeruginosa) under a gradient of light intensity, in monoculture and jointly. Under low light (resource) conditions, the populations diversified into a wide range of phenotypes, which were evenly distributed in multidimensional trait space (defined by four pigment-related trait dimensions), consistent with the observed field pattern. Our interpretation is that under conditions of light limitation, individual phytoplankton cells alter photosynthetic traits to reduce overlap in light acquisition, acquiring unexploited resources and thereby likely maximising individual success. Our results provide prime experimental evidence that resource limitation increases the evenness of conspecific and heterospecific microbial phenotypes along trait axes, advancing our understanding of trait-based coexistence.

Interactions among multiple anthropogenic stressors threaten freshwater fish and pose challenges for fisheries management and conservation. Previous studies of multiple‐stressor effects on freshwater fish suggest a prevalence of antagonistic interactions. However, taxonomy, life stage and/or environmental context likely modify the magnitude and direction of fish responses to multiple stressors. Stressor intensity, impact mechanism, exposure time and ecosystem size may further affect interaction outcomes. Large‐scale studies quantifying how these variables moderate stressor interactions are lacking. To address this knowledge gap, we performed a meta‐analysis of 29 factorial multiple‐stressor experiments to examine the influence of seven potential moderator variables on the magnitude and direction of stressor interactions. Using weighted random‐effects meta‐analytic models, we demonstrate the importance of taxonomic identity and life stage for interaction outcomes. In particular, Cypriniformes showed stronger antagonisms than Salmoniformes, as did larval fish compared to juveniles. Interaction outcomes also varied among the measured fish responses with survival yielding stronger antagonisms than biomass. Increasing experimental duration and volume of the experimental units both drove interactions towards synergisms, supporting findings from previous studies that synergisms take time and space to develop. In an era when the number of stressors affecting freshwater systems is increasing rapidly, our study provides a vital step towards identifying generalities in multiple‐stressor outcomes and thus improved predictions of multiple‐stressor impacts. Furthermore, our meta‐analysis complements studies in real streams, rivers and lakes by providing an experimentally derived context for the growing number of multiple‐stressor assessments in research, management and conservation of freshwater fish.

All organisms leave traces of DNA in their environment. This environmental DNA (eDNA) is often used to track occurrence patterns of target species. Applications are especially promising in rivers, where eDNA can integrate information about populations upstream. The dispersion of eDNA in rivers is modulated by complex processes of transport and decay through the dendritic river network, and we currently lack a method to extract quantitative information about the location and density of populations contributing to the eDNA signal. Here, we present a general framework to reconstruct the upstream distribution and abundance of a target species across a river network, based on observed eDNA concentrations and hydro-geomorphological features of the network. The model captures well the catchment-wide spatial biomass distribution of two target species: a sessile invertebrate (the bryozoan Fredericella sultana) and its parasite (the myxozoan Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae). Our method is designed to easily integrate general biological and hydrological data and to enable spatially explicit estimates of the distribution of sessile and mobile species in fluvial ecosystems based on eDNA sampling.

Resource limitation is a major driver of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of organisms.Short-term responses to resource limitation include plastic changes in molecularphenotypes including protein expression. Yet little is known about the evolution of themolecular phenotype under longer-term resource limitation. Here, we combine experimentalevolution of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under multiple different nonsubstitutableresource limitation regimes with proteomic measurements to investigate evolutionaryadaptation of the molecular phenotype. We demonstrate convergent proteomicevolution of core metabolic functions, including the Calvin-Benson cycle and gluconeogenesis,across different resource limitation environments. We do not observe proteomicchanges consistent with optimized uptake of particular limiting resources. Instead, we reportthat adaptation proceeds in similar directions under different types of non-substitutableresource limitation. This largely convergent evolution of the expression of core metabolicproteins is associated with an improvement in the resource assimilation efficiency of nitrogenand phosphorus into biomass.

Understanding the coevolution of hosts and parasites is a long‐standing goal of evolutionary biology. There is a well‐developed theoretical framework to describe the evolution of host–parasite interactions under the assumption of direct, two‐species interactions, which can result in arms race dynamics or sustained genotype fluctuations driven by negative frequency dependence (Red Queen dynamics). However, many hosts rely on symbionts for defence against parasites. Whilst the ubiquity of defensive symbionts and their potential importance for disease control are increasingly recognized, there is still a gap in our understanding of how symbionts mediate or possibly take part in host–parasite coevolution. Herein we address this question by synthesizing information already available from theoretical and empirical studies. First, we briefly introduce current hypotheses on how defensive mutualisms evolved from more parasitic relationships and highlight exciting new experimental evidence showing that this can occur very rapidly. We go on to show that defensive symbionts influence virtually all important determinants of coevolutionary dynamics, namely the variation in host resistance available to selection by parasites, the specificity of host resistance, and the trade‐off structure between host resistance and other components of fitness. In light of these findings, we turn to the limited theory and experiments available for such three‐species interactions to assess the role of defensive symbionts in host–parasite coevolution. Specifically, we discuss under which conditions the defensive symbiont may take over from the host the reciprocal adaptation with parasites and undergo its own selection dynamics, thereby altering or relaxing selection on the hosts' own immune defences. Finally, we address potential effects of defensive symbionts on the evolution of parasite virulence. This is an important problem for which there is no single, clear‐cut prediction. The selection on parasite virulence resulting from the presence of defensive symbionts in their hosts will depend on the underlying mechanism of defence. We identify the evolutionary predictions for different functional categories of symbiont‐conferred resistance and we evaluate the empirical literature for supporting evidence. We end this review with outstanding questions and promising avenues for future research to improve our understanding of symbiont‐mediated coevolution between hosts and parasites.