Convergent structure of multitrophic communities over three continents

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Biodiversity Studies

Background:

• Ecological theory posits that communities sharing resources should exhibit similar structures.
• Evolutionary factors like colonization and niche shifts can impede community convergence.
• Multitrophic insect communities associated with figs, evolving ~75 million years ago, offer a model system to study these dynamics.

Discussion:

• Fig-associated insect communities across three continents display ecological convergence in guild composition and abundance, despite lacking long-term taxonomic inheritance.
• This convergence is driven by a combination of phylogenetic niche conservatism, where existing lineages occupy similar ecological roles, and niche shifts by resident lineages.
• Local colonization by new insect lineages also contributes significantly to the observed ecological similarity across geographically separated communities.

Key Insights:

• Ecological community structure can converge even without taxonomic similarity, challenging simple predictions based on resource competition alone.
• Phylogenetic niche conservatism plays a role, but is insufficient to explain full community convergence.
• Niche shifts and local colonization are crucial mechanisms driving ecological convergence in complex multitrophic systems.

Outlook:

• Future research should integrate ecological and phylogenetic approaches to better understand biodiversity patterns in plant-insect interactions.
• Developing novel heuristic tools is essential for analyzing complex multitrophic communities.
• This study provides a framework for investigating the interplay of evolutionary and ecological processes shaping biodiversity in plant-associated insect communities.