Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons

Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons

Genome comparison is one of the excellent ways to interpret the evolutionary relationships between organisms. The basic principle of genome comparison is that if two species share a common feature, it is likely encoded by the DNA sequence conserved between both species. The advent of genome sequencing technologies in the late 20th century enabled scientists to understand the concept of conservation of domains between species and helped them to deduce evolutionary relationships across diverse...

Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do contain crucial regulatory sequences, the vast majority of this DNA serves no known function. Typically, these regions of the genome are the ones in which the fastest change, in evolutionary terms, is observed, because there is typically little to no selection pressure acting on these regions to preserve their sequences.
In contrast, regions which code...

Gene Flow

Gene Flow

Gene flow is the transfer of genes among populations, resulting from either the dispersal of gametes or from the migration of individuals.

Phylogeny

Phylogeny

Phylogeny is concerned with the evolutionary diversification of organisms or groups of organisms. A group of organisms with a name is called a taxon (singular). Taxa (plural) can span different levels of the evolutionary hierarchy. For instance, the group containing all birds is a taxon (comprising the class Aves), and the group of all species of daisies (the genus Bellis) is a taxon. Phylogenies can likewise include just one genus (i.e., depict species relationships) or span an entire kingdom.

Speciation Rates

Speciation Rates

Genetics of Speciation

Genetics of Speciation

Speciation is the evolutionary process resulting in the formation of new, distinct species—groups of reproductively isolated populations.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Climate-driven niche filtering limits post-dispersal establishment and genomic introgression in a riverine shrub.

Journal of integrative plant biology·2026

Same author

Temperate forest heterogeneity decreases local and landscape-scale spider diversity through habitat filtering despite increasing species turnover.

The Journal of animal ecology·2026

Same author

Predictions From Evolutionary Theory for Urban Environments.

Evolutionary applications·2026

Same author

Evolving nature-based solutions for urban resilience.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2026

Same author

Spatially-nested topologies stabilize meta-ecosystems via cross-scale source-sink dynamics.

Ecology·2026

Same author

Trait-based approaches to restoration ecology: Synthesizing insights from diverse systems.

Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 16, 2025

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

The mechanisms generating community phylogenetic patterns change with spatial scale.

Lanna S Jin¹, Deyi Yin², Marie-Josée Fortin¹

¹Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

|July 5, 2020

Summary

Community assembly patterns depend on observation scale. Plant relatedness and height shift from dispersed at small scales to clustered at larger scales, highlighting the importance of spatial scale in ecological studies.

Keywords:

Coexistence Community assembly Habitat filtering Phylogeny Spatial scale

More Related Videos

Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin

Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin

Published on: August 14, 2018

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Published on: October 29, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Dec 16, 2025

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin

Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin

Published on: August 14, 2018

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations

Published on: October 29, 2016

Area of Science:

Ecology
Community Ecology
Spatial Ecology

Background:

Community assembly hypotheses are often tested using observational data at plot or community levels.
Spatial scale significantly influences the detection of community assembly patterns.
Understanding scale-dependent assembly mechanisms is crucial for ecological research.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the spatial dependency of relatedness and plant height patterns in herbaceous plant communities.
To determine the scales at which community phylogenetic and trait similarities shift.
To assess how assembly mechanisms vary across different spatial scales.

Main Methods:

Field surveys of herbaceous plants along five 40-m old-field transects in Southern Ontario, Canada.
Measurement of individual plant distance and height, and construction of a molecular phylogeny for all species.
Application of partial Mantel correlograms and distance-based Moran Eigenvector Maps (dbMEMs) to analyze spatial patterns.

Main Results:

Herbaceous plant communities exhibited a shift from spatial overdispersion at scales <15 m to spatial clustering at larger scales.
This scale-dependent pattern was evident for both phylogenetic relatedness and plant height.
The strongest scale-dependent pattern was observed when considering phylogeny alone.

Conclusions:

Community assembly mechanisms are scale-dependent, influencing observed patterns of relatedness and traits.
Findings underscore the critical importance of spatial scale in interpreting community phylogenetic and trait patterns.
Support for a single assembly mechanism at one scale does not preclude the influence of other mechanisms at different scales.