Morning Breakout Roundup

Results from the morning discussion about important eco-evolutionary questions

Group 1

  • How does system size determine community assembly on evolutionary timescales?
  • What are the mechanisms that drive radiations?
  • What is the effect of island ontogeny in determining present-day biodiversity patterns?
  • What determines resistance to invasion?
  • Where is the diversity emerging, at the alpha level or at the beta level? Corrolary: Where do novel ecotypes come from? From evolution or dispersal?

Group 3

Question of whether we should limit ourselves by what is possible with the current modelling strategy. It would be nice to try linking the questions to conservation.

  • Are clade age and species richness correlated?
  • What are the limits to species richness?
  • Area vs diversification/speciation/extinction (classic M&W)
  • Invasions?
  • Alpha/Beta diversity
  • Why do some groups disperse and others not?
  • Are there limits to predictability of ecosystems?
  • Effects of island ontogeny and human activity on extinction, speciation, colonization, and diversification?

RE: The diagram - Mixing rates, data, and concepts. Mixing process and pattern. An organizational principle would be useful.

Group 4

“I’m not going to defend this already published paper, that I’m not an author on, that’s clearly in a really nice journal.”

  • How do particular radiations stand out or deviate from theoretical predictions?
  • What is the ultimate rate limiting factor of adaptive radiations?
  • What’s predictive in the ecological patterns across taxonomic scales similar or different?
  • What are limits to species richness?
  • Why might some habitat structures differentially resist invasion?
  • What are the conditions underlying repeatability?
  • Is there a relationship between abundance and speciation rate, as assumed by neutral theory?
    • Ecological winners and evolutionary losers. (See Katie’s comments in the google sheet).
  • Does diversification rate scale with area?
  • Can we distinguish between local coexistence niche shifts and habitat heterogeneity niche shifts? (Reword).
  • Evolved vs assembled communities.
  • What’s predictive in the mechanisms that drive radiations?
  • What’s the role of speciation in modifying networks?

Try to get some of these questions formulated in more of a predictive fashion.

In your mind, what is the difference between a box and an arrow? The boxes sort things out and the arrows bring back the chaos. What’s the difference between a model and a framework? - A framework is a more useful model.

Interest in pairs of framework boxes (ranked)

Abundance/Richness Group is highest Environmental Heterogeneity/Speciation/Extinction/Colonization Niches/Speciation/Extinction/Colonization

Eco-evolutionary framework

Justification: Macroevolution is going on and microevolution is going on and we’ve been doing a very bad job of putting them together.

We need to implement the MOSS model as well.