title: Reconstructing community assembly in time and space reveals enemy escape in a Western Palearctic insect community.
abstract: How geographically widespread biological communities assemble remains a major question in ecology. Do parallel population histories allow sustained interactions (such as host-parasite or plant-pollinator) among species, or do discordant histories necessarily interrupt them? Though few empirical data exist, these issues are central to our understanding of multispecies evolutionary dynamics. Here we use hierarchical approximate Bayesian analysis of DNA sequence data for 12 herbivores and 19 parasitoids to reconstruct the assembly of an insect community spanning the Western Palearctic and assess the support for alternative host tracking and ecological sorting hypotheses. We show that assembly occurred primarily by delayed host tracking from a shared eastern origin. Herbivores escaped their enemies for millennia before parasitoid pursuit restored initial associations, with generalist parasitoids no better able to track their hosts than specialists. In contrast, ecological sorting played only a minor role. Substantial turnover in host-parasitoid associations means that coevolution must have been diffuse, probably contributing to the parasitoid generalism seen in this and similar systems. Reintegration of parasitoids after host escape shows these communities to have been unsaturated throughout their history, arguing against major roles for parasitoid niche evolution or competition during community assembly.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK. graham.stone@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Graham N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lohse
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Nicholls
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fuentes-Utrilla
authors.forename: Frazer
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schönrogge
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Csóka
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Melika
authors.forename: Jose-Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Nieves-Aldrey
authors.forename: Juli
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pujade-Villar
authors.forename: Majide
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tavakoli
authors.forename: Richard R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Askew
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hickerson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D017753:Ecosystem; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000469:parasitology; D029963:Quercus / Q000469:parasitology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014863:Wasps / Q000469:parasitology*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial