Diversification of predators in multi-trophic communities: A trait-based theoretical approach

Sammanfattning: One of the main challenges in ecology and evolutionary biology is to understand how biodiversity emerges and is maintained, given the complexity of ecological and evolutionary processes combined. Understanding how multi-trophic interactions occur from a theoretical perspective is highly relevant for our understanding of diversification in complex ecosystems. Here, I explore how the diversification of predators is driven by predator-prey interactions in an eco-evolutionary context. I evaluate the effect of ecological and reproductive characteristics of predators on their diversification by using a trait-based and individual-based model. In terms of predator ecological characteristics, I find that higher feeding efficiency and intermediate predator niche widths facilitate diversification through higher population sizes and ecological opportunity respectively. In terms of reproduction, asexual reproduction facilitates predator diversification when compared to sexual reproduction, while the latter can hinder diversification unless assortative mating is high. Finally, high predator mutation rates allow for diversification, but only in combination with the characteristics mentioned before. The model thus improves our mechanistic understanding of the diversification of trophic communities, and it enables us to further study how eco-evolutionary interactions can allow biodiversity to arise.