The Evolutionary Ecology of Mutualisms in Urban Landscapes

Abstract Mutualisms are critically important in maintaining the biodiversity and functioning of ecosystems. Mutualisms include a diverse array of interactions that result in reciprocal positive effects for both partners, including plant–pollinator, plant–seed disperser, and plant–rhizobia interactions. There is growing recognition that global environmental change can affect the ecological outcomes of mutualisms, but less attention has been paid to how urbanization in particular affects their evolution. This chapter builds from an ecological perspective and considers how urban landscapes may affect the evolutionary ecology of mutualism. It reviews the adaptive evolutionary processes that could affect mutualism in urban landscapes. It then surveys transportation, protection, and nutritional mutualisms to assess how urbanization may affect these mutualistic interactions in an evolutionary framework. The survey described in the chapter highlights a dearth of empirical and theoretical investigations on urban mutualisms from an evolutionary perspective despite potentially strong changes in selection pressures in urban areas. The chapter ends by outlining research directions to further the study of the evolutionary ecology of mutualisms in urban landscapes.