CRISPR gene drive has recently been proposed as a promising technology for population management, including in conservation genetics. The technique would consist in releasing genetically engineered individuals that are designed to rapidly propagate a desired mutation or transgene into wild populations. Potential applications in conservation biology include the control of invasive pest populations that threaten biodiversity (eradication and suppression drives), or the introduction of beneficial mutations in endangered populations (rescue drives). The propagation of a gene drive is affected by different factors that depend on the drive construct (e.g. its fitness effect and timing of expression) or on the target species (e.g. its mating system and population structure). We review potential applications of the different types of gene drives for conservation. We examine the challenges posed by the evolution of resistance to gene drives and review the various molecular and environmental risks associated with gene drives (e.g. propagation to non target populations or species and unintended detrimental ecosystem impacts). We provide some guidelines for future gene drive research and discuss ethical, biosafety and regulation issues.

Species interactions lie at the heart of many theories of macroevolution, from adaptive radiation to the Red Queen. Although some theories describe the imprint that interactions will have over long timescales, we are still missing a comprehensive understanding of the effects of interactions on macroevolution. Current research shows strong evidence for the impact of interactions on macroevolutionary patterns of trait evolution and diversification, yet many macroevolutionary studies have only a tenuous relationship to ecological studies of interactions over shorter timescales. We review current research in this area, highlighting approaches that explicitly model species interactions and connect them to broad‐scale macroevolutionary patterns. We also suggest that progress has been made by taking an integrative interdisciplinary look at individual clades. We focus on African cichlids as a case study of how this approach can be fruitful. Overall, although the evidence for species interactions shaping macroevolution is strong, further work using integrative and model‐based approaches is needed to spur progress towards understanding the complex dynamics that structure communities over time and space.

The complexity of biotic and abiotic environmental conditions is such that the fitness of individuals is likely to depend on multiple traits. Using a synthetic framework of phenotypic evolution that draws from adaptive dynamics and quantitative genetics approaches, we explore how the number of traits under selection influences convergence stability and evolutionary stability in models for coevolution in multidimensional phenotype spaces. Our results allow us to identify three different effects of trait dimensionality on stability. First are (i) a "combinatorial effect": without epistasis and genetic correlations, a higher number of trait dimensions offers more opportunities for equilibria to be unstable; and (ii) epistatic interactions, that is, fitness interactions between traits, which tend to destabilize evolutionary equilibria; this effect increases with the dimension of phenotype space. These first two effects influence both convergence stability and evolutionary stability, while (iii) genetic correlations (due, e.g., to pleiotropy or linkage disequilibrium) can affect only convergence stability. We illustrate the general prediction that increased dimensionality destabilizes evolutionary equilibria using examples drawn from well-studied classical models of frequency-dependent competition for resources, adaptation to a spatially heterogeneous environment, and antagonistic coevolution. In addition, our analyses show that increased dimensionality can favor diversification, for example, in the form of local adaptation, as well as evolutionary escape.