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Ecology

Diversity breeds complementarity

Nature volume 515, pages 44–45 (2014)Cite this article

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Evolutionary and ecosystem processes have long been treated as distinct. The finding that interactions among plant species cause rapid evolutionary changes that affect ecosystem function suggests that it is time for unification. See Letter p.108

The great naturalist Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution by natural selection as a unifying explanation for patterns seen in the natural world. But the unity sought by naturalists gave way to more-fragmented perspectives as natural history itself speciated into the modern disciplines of ecosystem ecology, community ecology, population biology, palaeontology and evolution. In this issue, Zuppinger-Dingley and collaborators1 (page 108) have taken a significant step towards a reunification of these disciplines. Their findings in an experimental study of plants suggest that ecosystem and evolutionary processes cannot be separated: ecological interactions among a large number of plant species can cause rapid evolutionary changes that, in turn, influence ecosystem processes.

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Figure 1: Evolutionary niche shifts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David Tilman and Emilie Snell-Rood are in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.,

    David Tilman & Emilie C. Snell-Rood

  2. D.T. is also in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.,

    David Tilman

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  1. David Tilman
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  2. Emilie C. Snell-Rood
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Correspondence to David Tilman or Emilie C. Snell-Rood.

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Tilman, D., Snell-Rood, E. Diversity breeds complementarity. Nature 515, 44–45 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13929

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