Biotic niche expansion constrains the fundamental abiotic niche: Evidence from experimental evolution

ABSTRACT In an ever-changing world, organisms are subject to selective pressures that shape their ecological niches. Niche theory predicts that environmental heterogeneity selects for niche expansion, yet niches are inherently multidimensional, and expansion in one dimension may impose severe constrains on others. In this study, we employed rigorous experimental evolution to investigate these cross-dimensional trade-offs in the wheat curl mite, Aceria tosichella . By adapting replicated lineages to either stable (single-host) or alternating (two-host) environments for hundreds of generations, we successfully expanded the mites’ fundamental biotic host niche, enabling lineages to exploit diverse host species, including those unencountered during their evolutionary history. Crucially, however, this biotic generalization incurred a significant cost in the abiotic niche dimension. Lineages adapted to alternating hosts exhibited significantly reduced thermal tolerance compared to host specialists, which maintained superior performance across a wider thermal range. This trade-off appears to be driven by a combination of genetically based metabolic constraints and behavioral dispersal strategies. Our results provide compelling experimental evidence for the “Jack-of-all-trades is master of none” hypothesis across niche dimensions. We demonstrate that physiological trade-offs between biotic versatility and abiotic resilience strictly constrain the evolution of the multidimensional niche, with critical implications for forecasting species’ distributions and invasion potential under climate change.