Selection mosaics and the GMTC

This past week in Coevolvers, we dropped back into the empirical world and ready a paper from Piculell et al (2008) on evidence of selection mosaics. Selection mosaics describe a case where the fitness function of the interacting players varies across space (Gomulkiewicz et al 2007; Thompson 1999, 2005), sometimes described as GxGxE interactions (G: genetic; E: environment). What does this mean more generally? Simply put, the fitness of a plant may change from one population to the next because the nature of the interaction with a mutualist is affected by the environment. This can occur even if the genotypes that make up those populations are exactly the same.

The experimental design was certainly setting up the case for a maximum chance of detection of interaction effects. With only levels of each factor, (e.g. two genotypes of the host) the authors had less power to detect any main effects, but that clearly wasn't the objective. They wanted to find evidence of significant GxGxE. Essentially this experiment had 4 environmental treatments, so they maximized the chance of an interaction. The authors of this paper were very upfront that they were not intending to measure a selection mosaic in the natural setting. Their objective was to demonstrate the possibility and they certainly obtained that goal. With that limitation in mind, how general are these results? Measuring the potential for a selection mosaic is one thing, but for this to really have an impact in generating or maintaining diversity as imagined in the Geographic Mosaic Theory of Coevolution (Thompson 1999, 2005) then it must hold for a broad sample of the populations under investigation. The authors are on a good track though to discovering more about this system. Perhaps they plan on taking the methodology outlined in Nuismer and Gandon (2008) on reciprocal-transplant designs. Picking a larger sample of the genetic variation found in nature for at least one of the players would extend their results from the possible into the probable.

References

Gomulkiewicz, R., D. M. Drown, M. F. Dybdahl, W. Godsoe, S. L. Nuismer, K. M. Pepin, B. J. Ridenhour, C. I. Smith, and J. B. Yoder. 2007. Dos and don'ts of testing the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution. Heredity 98:249-258.

Nuismer, S. L., and S. Gandon. 2008. Moving beyond Common-Garden and Transplant Designs: Insight into the Causes of Local Adaptation in Species Interactions. American Naturalist 171:658-668.

Piculell, B., J. Hoeksema, and J. Thompson. 2008. Interactions of biotic and abiotic environmental factors in an ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, and the potential for selection mosaics. Bmc Biol 6:23.

Thompson, J. N. 1999. Specific hypotheses on the geographic mosaic of coevolution. American Naturalist 153:S1-S14.

Thompson, J. N. 2005.
The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Paper Read

Piculell, B., Hoeksema, J., & Thompson, J. (2008). Interactions of biotic and abiotic environmental factors on an ectomycorrhizal symbiosis, and the potential for selection mosaics BMC Biology, 6 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-6-23

Does nestedness lead to more nestedness?

This past week in Coevolvers, we read a brand new paper in Nature from Bastolla et al (2009). The authors create a simple model to understand how network structure can lead to an increase in predicted biodiversity in a community. In this case, the authors were looking at how a network of mutualistic interactions will generally be nested. This network structure can reduce interspecific competition and allow a greater biodiversity. The nestedness of interactions in this kind of community refers to how many pollinators a pair of plants share compared to their total number of pollinators. The more they share, and the more this is the case across the entire network, then the higher the network nestedness. The authors use a set of previously published real networks to test predictions from their model.

I thought I would have a quick look at some of these "real" networks. The appendix of the paper directed me to Bascompte et al (2003). This paper summarized pollinator, seed dispersal, and food web networks of plant-animal interactions.

While there I noticed a reference to a review paper in Annals of Botany (Vazquez et al 2009) with an exciting title (Uniting pattern and process in plant-animal mutualistic networks). This looks like a great review and perhaps a future post. In the section outlining "patterns", they provide two contrasting topics, "Mutualistic networks tend to nested" but also "Mutualistic networks tend to be compartmentalized". This struck me as contradictory to the paper we read (Bastolla et al 2009) which predicted nested networks to emerge.

Vazquez et al (2009) had several citations for compartmentalized networks (Dicks et al 2002; Guimaraes et al 2007; Olesen et al 2007). I looked up the Dicks et al paper. I see they find compartmentalization. "The compartments reflected classic pollination syndromes to some extent, dividing the insect fauna into a group of butterflies and bees, and a group of flies, at both sites. The compartmentalization was also affected by phenology" (Dicks et al 2002). There are certainly more examples out in nature that are compartmentalized. Pollinator syndromes could create these compartments. There are other examples of real networks of mutualisms that show compartmentalization. Vazquez et al (2009) finally point to a paper from Lewinsohn et al (2006) where they propose how both patterns can co-occur (compartments with nestedness) and I think this is really what Dicks et al (2002) is finding. Olesen et al (2007) have a paper where they are essentially calling this modularity. You have compartments (modules) and then nested networks present within those. While the original paper we read (Bastolla et al 2009) contained a potential process for how mutualistic networks can form, it seems as though natural networks are probably the result of a complex set of processes.

References

Bascompte, J., P. Jordano, C. J. Melian, and J. M. Olesen. 2003. The nested assembly of plant-animal mutualistic networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100:9383-9387.

Vazquez, D. P., N. Bluthgen, L. Cagnolo, and N. P. Chacoff. 2009. Uniting pattern and process in plant-animal mutualistic networks: a review. Ann Bot.

Dicks, L. V., S. A. Corbet, and R. F. Pywell. 2002. Compartmentalization in plant-insect flower visitor webs. Journal of Animal Ecology 71:32-43.

Olesen, J. M., J. Bascompte, Y. L. Dupont, and P. Jordano. 2007. The modularity of pollination networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:19891-19896.

Lewinsohn, T., P. Prado, P. Jordano, J. Bascompte, and J. Olesen. 2006. Structure in plant-animal interaction assemblages. Oikos 113:174-184.

Paper Read

Bastolla, U., Fortuna, M., Pascual-García, A., Ferrera, A., Luque, B., & Bascompte, J. (2009). The architecture of mutualistic networks minimizes competition and increases biodiversity Nature, 458 (7241), 1018-1020 DOI: 10.1038/nature07950