Ecosystem Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, a New Frontier for Experiments and Models

One of the most important scientific problems about which we are profoundly ignorant is how ecosystem processes change as populations evolve. These changes in ecosystem processes are propelled by evolutionary changes in organism traits and in turn may exert additional selection pressures on the evolving populations. Understanding these feedbacks between ecosystem and evolutionary processes is a challenge for evolutionary and ecosystem theory and experiments in the 21st century. This essay reviews some recent empirical and theoretical studies which are beginning to shed light on the complexity of these feedbacks and makes suggestions for future directions and the training of the next generation of students.