Analyzing eco-evolutionary dynamics under environmental change in a physiologically-structured individual-based model

Recent rapid changes in the environment increasingly affect populations around the globe. Theoretical and empirical studies show that both individual life-history traits as well as evolutionary responses could mediate a population's response to these changes. Population models that integrate both ecological processes arising from individual life-history traits and the evolutionary forces acting on these traits can provide better predictions and a general approach for analyzing eco-evolutionary dynamics of populations facing rapid environmental change.We propose an individual-based modelling (IBM) framework adopting standardized submodels representing the life-history of individuals as well as inheritance mechanisms of adaptive traits. IBMs provide an intuitive approach to integrate ecological and evolutionary processes. Adopting an energy-budget based submodel to represent an individual's life-history allows for the emergence of individual fitness within the local environment. Further integration of a quantitative genetic approach to inheritance of adaptive life-history traits (resulting from energy-budget parameters), allows for the modelling of eco-evolutionary feedbacks as a function of the population's environment. In this simulation-based work, we explore the modelling framework to analyze the emerging eco-evolutionary dynamics in a Daphnia magna laboratory population. This analysis underpins the further coupling of evolutionary and ecological theory in populations models.