The role of interaction structure in eco-evolutionary dynamics (EcoEvoInteract)

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Organisms from microbes to multicellular plants and animals interact extensively across multiple scales and influence each other's survival, reproduction, and phenotypic expression. The pattern of these interactions, shaped by variation in space, time, and behavioral repertoire, generates structure that can shape individual genotypes and phenotypes, group- and population-level processes, and community composition. The essential concepts underlying general eco-evolutionary dynamics are known. However, we lack a systematic understanding of how interaction structures influence each other across space, time, and levels of biological organization. Our goal is to fill this gap in the literature and generate a theoretical framework for inter-scale behavioral and evolutionary dynamics that is amenable to empirical testing. To do so, we propose to create an interdisciplinary scientific network (Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Behaviour, Microbiology, Genetics, and Neuroscience) of researchers with expertise across different model organisms (vertebrates, invertebrates, and bacteria) and ecological communities. Our interdisciplinary backgrounds will allow us to identify universal principles of organismal interaction network dynamics and their eco-evolutionary implications.