Sirine Boucenna, Vasilis Dakos, Gael Raoul

While it is known that shallow lakes ecosystems may experience abrupt shifts (ie tipping points) from one state to a contrasting degraded alternative state as a result of gradual environmental changes, the role of evolutionary processes and the impact of trait variation in this context remain largely unexplored. It is crucial to elucidate how eco-evolutionary feedbacks affect abrupt ecological transitions in shallow lakes. These feedbacks can significantly alter the dynamics of aquatic plants competition, community structure, and species diversity, potentially affecting the existence of alternative states or either delay or expedite the thresholds at which these ecological shifts occur.
In this paper, we explore the eco-evolutionary dynamics of submerged and floating macrophytes in a shallow lake ecosystem under asymmetric competition for nutrients and light. We use adaptive dynamics and a structured population model to analyze the evolution of the growth depth of the submerged and floating macrophytes population, which influences their competitive ability for the two resources. We show
how rapid trait evolution can result in complex dynamics including evolutionary oscillations, extensive diversification and evolutionary suicide.
Furthermore, we find that the co-evolution of the two competitive species can play a stabilizing role, while not significantly affecting the overall evolutionary dynamics. Overall, this study shows that evolution can have strong effects in the ecological dynamics of bistable ecosystems.