Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Evolutionary diversification in stickleback affects ecosystem functioning

Nature volume 458, pages 1167–1170 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Explaining the ecological causes of evolutionary diversification is a major focus of biology, but surprisingly little has been said about the effects of evolutionary diversification on ecosystems1,2,3. The number of species in an ecosystem and their traits are key predictors of many ecosystem-level processes, such as rates of productivity, biomass sequestration and decomposition4,5. Here we demonstrate short-term ecosystem-level effects of adaptive radiation in the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) over the past 10,000 years. These fish have undergone recent parallel diversification in several lakes in coastal British Columbia, resulting in the formation of two specialized species (benthic and limnetic) from a generalist ancestor6. Using a mesocosm experiment, we demonstrate that this diversification has strong effects on ecosystems, affecting prey community structure, total primary production, and the nature of dissolved organic materials that regulate the spectral properties of light transmission in the system. However, these ecosystem effects do not simply increase in their relative strength with increasing specialization and species richness; instead, they reflect the complex and indirect consequences of ecosystem engineering by sticklebacks. It is well known that ecological factors influence adaptive radiation7,8. We demonstrate that adaptive radiation, even over short timescales, can have profound effects on ecosystems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Differences in community structure and productivity among treatments.
Figure 2: Dissolved organic content and light transmission across treatments.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Thompson, J. N. Rapid evolution as an ecological process. Trends Ecol. Evol. 13, 329–332 (1998)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Fussmann, G. F., Loreau, M. & Abrams, P. A. Eco-evolutionary dynamics of communities and ecosystems. Funct. Ecol. 21, 465–477 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Yoshida, T., Jones, L. E., Ellner, S. P., Fussmann, G. F. & Hairston, N. G. Rapid evolution drives ecological dynamics in a predator–prey system. Nature 424, 303–306 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Schmitz, O. J. Predators have large effects on ecosystem properties by changing plant diversity not plant biomass. Ecology 87, 1432–1437 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Loreau, M. et al. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: current knowledge and future challenges. Science 294, 804–808 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. McPhail, J. D. Ecology and evolution of sympatric sticklebacks (Gasterosteus): origin of the species pairs. Can. J. Zool. 71, 515–523 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Schluter, D. The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Seehausen, O. et al. Speciation through sensory drive in cichlid fish. Nature 455, 620–626 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Losos, J. B. Portrait of an Adaptive Radiation: Ecology and Evolution of Anolis Lizards (Univ. California Press, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Grant, P. R. & Grant, B. R. How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin’s Finches (Princeton Univ. Press, 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Abrams, P. A. The evolution of predator–prey interactions: theory and evidence. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 31, 79–105 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Palkovacs, E. P. & Post, D. M. Experimental evidence that phenotypic divergence in predators drives community divergence in prey. Ecology 90, 300–305 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Snyder, W. E., Snyder, G. B., Finke, D. L. & Straub, C. S. Predator biodiversity strengthens herbivore suppression. Ecol. Lett. 9, 789–796 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lennon, J. T. & Martiny, J. B. H. Rapid evolution buffers ecosystem impacts of viruses in a microbial food web. Ecol. Lett. 11, 1178–1188 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Erwin, D. H. Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity. Trends Ecol. Evol. 23, 304–310 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Colosimo, P. F. et al. Widespread parallel evolution in sticklebacks by repeated fixation of ectodysplasin alleles. Science 307, 1928–1933 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Rundle, H. D., Nagel, L., Boughman, J. W. & Schluter, D. Natural selection and parallel speciation in sympatric sticklebacks. Science 287, 306–308 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Boughman, J. W. Divergent sexual selection enhances reproductive isolation in sticklebacks. Nature 411, 944–947 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Bell, T., Neill, W. E. & Schluter, D. The effect of temporal scale on the outcome of trophic cascade experiments. Oecologia 134, 578–586 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Schmitz, O. J. Effects of predator hunting mode on grassland ecosystem function. Science 319, 952–954 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Goudard, A. & Loreau, M. Non-trophic interactions, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: an interaction web model. Am. Nat. 171, 91–106 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Stibor, H. et al. Copepods act as a switch between alternative trophic cascades in marine pelagic food webs. Ecol. Lett. 7, 321–328 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Jones, C. G., Lawton, J. H. & Shachak, M. Positive and negative effects of organisms as physical ecosystem engineers. Ecology 78, 1946–1957 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Mazumder, A., Taylor, W. D., McQueen, D. J. & Lean, D. R. S. Effects of fish and plankton on lake temperature and mixing depth. Science 247, 312–315 (1990)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Williamson, C. E., Morris, D. P., Pace, M. L. & Olson, A. G. Dissolved organic carbon and nutrients as regulators of lake ecosystems: Resurrection of a more integrated paradigm. Limnol. Oceanogr. 44, 795–803 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Retamal, L., Vincent, W. F., Martineau, C. & Osburn, C. L. Comparison of the optical properties of dissolved organic matter in two river-influenced coastal regions of the Canadian arctic. Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 72, 261–272 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Ghan, D., McPhail, J. D. & Hyatt, K. D. The temporal-spatial pattern of vertical migration by the freshwater copepod Skistodiaptomus oregonensis relative to predation risk. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 55, 1350–1363 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Obernosterer, I. & Benner, R. Competition between biological and photochemical processes in the mineralization of dissolved organic carbon. Limnol. Oceanogr. 49, 117–124 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. McKnight, D. M. et al. Spectrofluorometric characterization of dissolved organic matter for indication of precursor organic material and aromaticity. Limnol. Oceanogr. 46, 38–48 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Pienitz, R. & Vincent, W. F. Effect of climate change relative to ozone depletion on UV exposure in subarctic lakes. Nature 404, 484–487 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank A. Albert, T. Vines, D. Yim, P. Tamkee, J. Courchesne, R. Barrett, K. Marchinko, M. Arnegard, J. Sashaw, J. Gosling, S. Hausch, J. Rosenfeld and S. Rogers for assistance in the laboratory and the field. We thank E. B. Rosenblum and members of the Harmon laboratory for comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Luke J. Harmon and Blake Matthews: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83844-3051, USA,

    Luke J. Harmon & Simone Des Roches

  2. Biodiversity Research Centre and Zoology Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada,

    Luke J. Harmon, Blake Matthews, Jonathan B. Shurin & Dolph Schluter

  3. EAWAG, Aquatic Ecology, Seestrasse 79, 6047 Kastanienbaum, Switzerland ,

    Blake Matthews

  4. Department of Biology, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri 63130, USA,

    Jonathan M. Chase

Authors
  1. Luke J. Harmon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Blake Matthews
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Simone Des Roches
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jonathan M. Chase
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jonathan B. Shurin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Dolph Schluter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luke J. Harmon.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Notes and Data, Supplementary Figure S1 with Legend and Supplementary References (PDF 528 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Harmon, L., Matthews, B., Des Roches, S. et al. Evolutionary diversification in stickleback affects ecosystem functioning. Nature 458, 1167–1170 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07974

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07974

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing