Levels and limits in artificial selection of communities

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Microbial Ecology

Background:

• Artificial selection is key to Darwin's theory.
• Ecosystem artificial selection shows promise for understanding natural selection across organizational levels.

Purpose of the Study:

• To prove that artificial selection on ecosystems creates specific interaction network structures.
• To investigate the limits of ecosystem artificial selection for managing ecosystem functions.

Main Methods:

• Artificially selected microbial communities over 21 generations (n=7560) for low CO2 emissions.
• Analyzed community phenotype heritability and interaction network structure.

Main Results:

• High heritability (52%) of community phenotype was observed.
• Artificial selection resulted in simpler interaction networks with reduced interaction richness.
• Phenotype variance and heritability decreased over generations.

Conclusions:

• Artificial selection on ecosystems can predictably alter interaction network structure.
• Selection appears limited by sampling effects rather than ecosystem dynamics.
• Ecosystem artificial selection offers potential for managing ecosystem functions.