The goal of this research is to present a simple and flexible approach in constraining ecological spatial neighbourhoods using terrain data.
It may be necessary to remove watershed boundaries in low-lying areas that do not have terrain high enough to constrain ecological function.
Following this idea, Thébault & Fontaine [10] developed a population dynamic model and compared pollination and herbivore networks, and concluded that the type of interaction (mutualistic vs. antagonistic) constrains ecological networks towards different architectures.
Though the species spread throughout Asia, Australia and Europe (the populating of the Americas is believed by most researchers to have happened after the ice began to retreat, although not everybody agrees), it was constrained by ecological circumstances in much the same way as any other animal.
In real biological communities, the efficacy of innate and adaptive immune systems is constrained by ecological factors such as population size, structure and diversity.
This pattern suggests that evolution of male tail length may be constrained by ecological selection if tail length impacts survival in some way.
Our model is consistent with this if one assumes that the intermediate ecological genotypes of hybrid species make possible the development of extreme phenotypes, whereas parental genotypes are relatively costly (e.g. developmentally and physiologically) and constrain ecological phenotypes.
The present research demonstrates that doing so is feasible and that the findings may not be the same as those obtained in laboratory or other settings that constrain ecological validity.
While laboratory experiments are important for understanding the information that consumers consider when making specific purchases (Graham et al., 2012), manipulating participants' motivations as well as limiting the choice of products constrains ecological validity.
Rather than constraining its ecological contribution to that role, we should consider Prochlorococcus as evolved cyanobacteria whose genomes have been subjected to a large specialization [5], [7].
