The Evolution of Ecological Stability and its Impact on Ecosystem Resilience and Adaptive Potential

Aquatic ecosystems globally are facing wide-scale disruption due to climate change, reduced nutrient cycling and a plethora of other effects. Food web models predict 'trophic amplification' of effects up trophic levels. This will cause system destabilisation and changes in ecosystem structure and productivity. How ecosystems will change depends
on their ecological and evolutionary responses, and their evolutionary history. Modelling suggests ecosystems should be intrinsically ecologically unstable, but theoretical and empirical evidence show ecosystems evolve for system-level stability. One evolutionary mechanism is prudent predation, where predators evolve their attack rates to match the carrying capacity of their prey. Prudent predation has been demonstrated in simple models, but the extent prudence emerges in complex aquatic food webs is insufficiently understood. What is known is evolution of prudence depends strongly on the abiotic environment, so environmental history affects evolution of system stability, so could have profound effects on resilience to environmental change. Environmental change could then prevent
future evolution of system stability. In turn, evolution of system stability through fine-tuning species interactions could also affect and constrain the adaptive potential of ecosystems. This project will investigate how evolution of prudence and other evolutionary mechanisms in aquatic food webs control whole-ecosystem functioning and responses to change.