TY - JOUR
T1 - Community specificity
T2 - Life and afterlife effects of genes
AU - Whitham, Thomas G.
AU - Gehring, Catherine A.
AU - Lamit, Louis J.
AU - Wojtowicz, Todd
AU - Evans, Luke M.
AU - Keith, Arthur R.
AU - Smith, David Solance
N1 - Funding Information:
Our work was supported by NSF DEB-0425908, NSF DEB-0816675 and Science Foundation Arizona. A National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship grant provided support for L.J.L., D.S.S., L.M.E. and A.R.K. We apologize for not being able to reference more of the research by our colleagues owing to space and citation limitations. We thank Steve Shuster for his comments on the manuscript.
PY - 2012/5
Y1 - 2012/5
N2 - Community-level genetic specificity results when individual genotypes or populations of the same species support different communities. Our review of the literature shows that genetic specificity exhibits both life and afterlife effects; it is a widespread phenomenon occurring in diverse taxonomic groups, aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems, and species-poor to species-rich systems. Such specificity affects species interactions, evolution, ecosystem processes and leads to community feedbacks on the performance of the individuals expressing the traits. Thus, genetic specificity by communities appears to be fundamentally important, suggesting that specificity is a major driver of the biodiversity and stability of the world's ecosystems.
AB - Community-level genetic specificity results when individual genotypes or populations of the same species support different communities. Our review of the literature shows that genetic specificity exhibits both life and afterlife effects; it is a widespread phenomenon occurring in diverse taxonomic groups, aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems, and species-poor to species-rich systems. Such specificity affects species interactions, evolution, ecosystem processes and leads to community feedbacks on the performance of the individuals expressing the traits. Thus, genetic specificity by communities appears to be fundamentally important, suggesting that specificity is a major driver of the biodiversity and stability of the world's ecosystems.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862779144&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.tplants.2012.01.005
DO - 10.1016/j.tplants.2012.01.005
M3 - Review article
C2 - 22322002
AN - SCOPUS:84862779144
SN - 1360-1385
VL - 17
SP - 271
EP - 281
JO - Trends in Plant Science
JF - Trends in Plant Science
IS - 5
ER -