title: How fast is fast? Eco-evolutionary dynamics and rates of change in populations and phenotypes.
abstract: It is increasingly recognized that evolution may occur in ecological time. It is not clear, however, how fast evolution - or phenotypic change more generally - may be in comparison with the associated ecology, or whether systems with fast ecological dynamics generally have relatively fast rates of phenotypic change. We developed a new dataset on standardized rates of change in population size and phenotypic traits for a wide range of species and taxonomic groups. We show that rates of change in phenotypes are generally no more than 2/3, and on average about 1/4, the concurrent rates of change in population size. There was no relationship between rates of population change and rates of phenotypic change across systems. We also found that the variance of both phenotypic and ecological rates increased with the mean across studies following a power law with an exponent of two, while temporal variation in phenotypic rates was lower than in ecological rates. Our results are consistent with the view that ecology and evolution may occur at similar time scales, but clarify that only rarely do populations change as fast in traits as they do in abundance.
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: John P
authors: JP
authors: DeLong
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Valery E
authors: VE
authors: Forbes
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Nika
authors: N
authors: Galic
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Jean P
authors: JP
authors: Gibert
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Robert G
authors: RG
authors: Laport
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Joseph S
authors: JS
authors: Phillips
authors: School of Biological Sciences University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska 68588.
authors: Janna M
authors: JM
authors: Vavra
keywords: Eco‐evolutionary dynamics; Taylor's power law; evolutionary constraint; evolutionary rate; population dynamics; rapid evolution