Dear Dr. Thrall,
We are pleased to be submitting our Perspectives paper for the
Ecology Letters special issue “Exploring the Border between Ecology and
Evolution”. We were in correspondence with Dr. Hello and yourself in
May and were invited to submit this manuscript. We thank you for your
time and consideration.
Rock-paper-scissors dynamics have been shown to affect the evolutionary
dynamics at play within species and populations and are analogous to the
ways in which intransitive competition modifies competitive outcomes and
the co-existence of species. While these processes are studied by both
ecologists and evolutionary biologists in a growing body of literature,
there is an absence of research into how these processes may be working
simultaneously across both ecological and evolutionary scales. The
continued separation of ecological and evolutionary research has led to
an incomplete and fragmented understanding of both rock-paper-scissor
dynamics and intransitive competition.
In our Perspectives article we explore the similarities between
rock-paper-scissor dynamics and intransitive competition and how this
link opens new avenues of research into eco-evolutionary processes. We
begin by investigating how rock-paper-scissor dynamics and intransitive
competition have each been used in past research to explore the
diversity and stability of systems. In particular, intransitive dynamics
have been shown to drive the stable coexistence of different phenotypes
within species. At the same time, these dynamics clearly operate at the
community level to maintain diversity across species. In doing so, we
argue that this phenomenon (intransitivity) occurs simultaneously in
both ecological and evolutionary contexts, and represents an exciting
new avenue of research linking these disciplines. Our review of the
literature highlights not only the presence of intransitive dynamics in
both ecological and evolutionary contexts, but the potential existence
of feedback mechanisms that operate between them. Using simulations
adapted from Maynard et al. (2019), we provide mathematical support for
the idea that greater intraspecific intransitivity between phenotypes
within a population can lead to greater levels of intransitivity between
species at the community-level, with direct implications for community
diversity and stability.
Novelty of this work: This is the first paper that explicitly
makes this connection, and we hope that our conceptual framework will
strengthen our understanding of how non-hierarchical interactions shape
both evolutionary and ecological outcomes. We provide promising
directions for future research and our work creates a path towards an
improved interpretation of natural systems that is more dynamic,
integrative, and holistic.
We hope that you would consider this for possible publication in Ecology
Letters. No part of this has been submitted elsewhere.
Yours sincerely,
Giacomo Delgado
Rock-Paper-Scissor Dynamics and Intransitive Competition link Ecology
and Evolution
Giacomo L. Delgado
(gidelgado@student.ethz.ch,
ETH Zurich, Department of Environmental Sciences),
Daniel Maynard
(dan.s.maynard@gmail.com, ETH
Zurich, Department of Environmental Sciences),
Jukka Jokela
(jokela@env.ethz.ch, ETH
Zurich, Department of Environmental Sciences,
Thomas, W. Crowther
(Tom.Crowther@usys.ethz.ch,
ETH Zurich, Department of Environmental Sciences)