Print PageThrough their influence on nutrient cycling rates, plant strategies for nutrient acquisition and recycling are key components of ecosystem functioning. How the evolution of such strategies modifies ecosystem functioning and services is still not well understood. Using a simple generic model, we follow the dynamics of a nutrient inside a source-sink meta-ecosystem.
Results/Conclusions
When evolutionary pressures are spatially heterogeneous at the landscape scale, complex eco-evolutionary dynamics emerge and lead to source-sink meta-ecosystems. Depending on the strength of trade-offs between functional strategies, we show how evolution of such strategies can turn source ecosystems into sinks and vice versa. We also point out the possibility for multiple successive transformations to occur. We discuss the possible consequences of these results for the maintenance of functional diversity and of ecosystem services (invasive species regulation, mineralization rates, nutrient availability and primary productivity): evolution of plants in their native habitat can foster or impede their invasion potential, nutrient availability is always minimized through evolution (as predicted by Tilman’s rule of R*) while, due to allocation costs, primary productivity and mineralization rates are not necessarily maximized.
