Bridging valleys: Expanding the adaptive landscape concept beyond theoretical space--with applications in ecology and evolution

Abstract

Adaptive landscapes embody a concept that has provided valuable services to evolutionary biology over the last 80 years. Its heuristic power derives from its capacity to portray fitness functions in planar representations where environmental conditions are presumed to be static. In an effort to incorporate environmental change into this powerful theoretical tool, we propose an expanded, three-dimensional eco-phenotypic landscape which relates to physical ecological space. This is expected to enhance the ecological applications of the adaptive landscape by providing practical insight into various evolutionary principles including adaptive divergence, gene flow, and sympatric speciation.