Ecological feedbacks in evolutionary rescue

The speed of adaptive evolution can be remarkably fast, yet may sometimes fail to keep pace with rapidly changing environments. Quantifying the evolvability of populations is a necessary piece of a holistic view of conservation and may reveal deep principles restricting any single species from dominating a large range of habitats. In this talk, I first examine the fate of populations that must track a steadily changing environment to avoid extinction. Modeling results show how maladaptation can feed back on the rate of evolution, either boosting evolvability when it is most needed or critically slowing it in vulnerable, lagging populations. I then examine evolvability as a determinant of which of several competing solutions to a changed environment might win. These modeling results help predict which features of a population might predict specialization or extinction in response to crisis, with applications ranging from viral emergence to conservation of threatened animals and plants.