PLoS Biology November 25, 2025

Evolving life-history traits promote biodiversity via eco-evolutionary feedback mechanisms

by P. Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza, Claudia Bank To what extent is biodiversity shaped by environmental conditions, and to what extent is it the result of self-organization? Both natural processes and organismal properties may contribute to promoting diversity. Here, we show that one such process, namely natural selection, and an organismal property, namely life history, interact in a feedback mechanism that promotes the emergence of diversity. We illustrate how this mechanism operates using vario