More Like this

1. How will mosquitoes adapt to climate warming?

   https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.69630  

   Couper, Lisa I ; Farner, Johannah E ; Caldwell, Jamie M ; Childs, Marissa L ; Harris, Mallory J ; Kirk, Devin G ; Nova, Nicole ; Shocket, Marta ; Skinner, Eloise B ; Uricchio, Lawrence H ; et al ( August 2021 , eLife)

   null (Ed.)

   The potential for adaptive evolution to enable species persistence under a changing climate is one of the most important questions for understanding impacts of future climate change. Climate adaptation may be particularly likely for short-lived ectotherms, including many pest, pathogen, and vector species. For these taxa, estimating climate adaptive potential is critical for accurate predictive modeling and public health preparedness. Here, we demonstrate how a simple theoretical framework used in conservation biology—evolutionary rescue models—can be used to investigate the potential for climate adaptation in these taxa, using mosquito thermal adaptation as a focal case. Synthesizing current evidence, we find that short mosquito generation times, high population growth rates, and strong temperature-imposed selection favor thermal adaptation. However, knowledge gaps about the extent of phenotypic and genotypic variation in thermal tolerance within mosquito populations, the environmental sensitivity of selection, and the role of phenotypic plasticity constrain our ability to make more precise estimates. We describe how common garden and selection experiments can be used to fill these data gaps. Lastly, we investigate the consequences of mosquito climate adaptation on disease transmission using Aedes aegypti -transmitted dengue virus in Northern Brazil as a case study. The approach outlined here can be applied to any disease vector or pest species and type of environmental change. 

   more » « less
2. Local adaptation in the transgenerational response to copper pollution in the bryozoan Bugula neritina

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9524  

   Neylan, Isabelle P. ; Sih, Andrew ; Stachowicz, John J. ( November 2022 , Ecology and Evolution)

   Transgenerational plasticity (TGP)—when a parent or previous generation's environmental experience affects offspring phenotype without involving a genetic change—can be an important mechanism allowing for rapid adaptation. However, despite increasing numbers of empirical examples of TGP, there appears to be considerable variation in its strength and direction, yet limited understanding of what causes this variation. We compared patterns of TGP in response to stress across two populations with high versus low historical levels of stress exposure. Specifically, we expected that exposure to acute stress in the population experiencing historically high levels of stress would result in adaptive TGP or alternatively fixed tolerance (no parental effect), whereas the population with low levels of historical exposure would result in negative parental carryover effects. Using a common sessile marine invertebrate,Bugula neritina, and a split brood design, we exposed parents from both populations to copper or control treatments in the laboratory and then had them brood copper‐naïve larvae. We then exposed half of each larval brood to copper and half to control conditions before allowing them to grow to maturity in the field. Maternal copper exposure had a strong negative carryover effect on adult offspring growth and survival in the population without historical exposure, especially when larvae themselves were exposed to copper. We found little to no maternal or offspring treatment effect on adult growth and survival in the population with a history of copper exposure. However, parents from this population produced larger larvae on average and were able to increase the size of their larvae in response to copper exposure, providing a potential mechanism for maintaining fitness and suggesting TGP through maternal provisioning. These results indicate that the ability to adjust offspring phenotype via TGP may be a locally adapted trait and potentially influenced by past patterns of exposure.

    

   more » « less
3. Microbial rescue effects: How microbiomes can save hosts from extinction

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13493  

   Mueller, Emmi A. ; Wisnoski, Nathan I. ; Peralta, Ariane L. ; Lennon, Jay T. ; Bennett, ed., Alison ( January 2020 , Functional Ecology)

   Rescue effects arise when ecological and evolutionary processes restore positive intrinsic growth rates in populations that are at risk of going extinct. Rescue effects have traditionally focused on the roles of immigration, phenotypic plasticity, gene flow, and adaptation. However, species interactions are also critical for understanding how populations respond to environmental change.

   In particular, the fitness of plant and animal hosts is strongly influenced by symbiotic associations with the bacteria, archaea, microeukaryotes and viruses that collectively make up a host's microbiome. While some are pathogenic, many microorganisms confer nutritional, immunological, and developmental benefits that can protect hosts against the effects of rapid environmental change.

   Microbial rescue occurs when changes in microbiome abundance, composition, or activity influence host physiology or behaviour in ways that improve host fitness. If these microbial attributes and their beneficial effects are transmitted through a population, it may stabilize growth rates and reduce the probability of extinction.

   In addition to providing a framework to guide theoretical and empirical efforts in host‐microbiome research, the principles of microbial rescue may also be useful for adaptively managing at‐risk species. We discuss the risks and rewards of incorporating microbial rescue into conservation strategies such as probiotics, assisted migration, and captive breeding.

   A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

    

   more » « less
4. Phenotypic plasticity and genetic diversity shed light on endemism of rare Boechera perstellata and its potential vulnerability to climate warming

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10540  

   Boyd, Jennifer Nagel ; Baskauf, Carol ; Lindsey, Annie ; Anderson, Jill T. ; Brzyski, Jessica ; Cruse‐Sanders, Jennifer ( September 2023 , Ecology and Evolution)

   The rapid pace of contemporary environmental change puts many species at risk, especially rare species constrained by limited capacity to adapt or migrate due to low genetic diversity and/or fitness. But the ability to acclimate can provide another way to persist through change. We compared the capacity of rareBoechera perstellata(Braun's rockcress) and widespreadB. laevigatato acclimate to change. We investigated the phenotypic plasticity of growth, biomass allocation, and leaf morphology of individuals ofB. perstellataandB. laevigatapropagated from seed collected from several populations throughout their ranges in a growth chamber experiment to assess their capacity to acclimate. Concurrently, we assessed the genetic diversity of sampled populations using 17 microsatellite loci to assess evolutionary potential. Plasticity was limited in both rareB. perstellataand widespreadB. laevigata, but differences in the plasticity of root traits between species suggest thatB. perstellatamay have less capacity to acclimate to change. In contrast to its widespread congener,B. perstellataexhibited no plasticity in response to temperature and weaker plastic responses to water availability. As expected,B. perstellataalso had lower levels of observed heterozygosity thanB. laevigataat the species level, but population‐level trends in diversity measures were inconsistent due to high heterogeneity amongB. laevigatapopulations. Overall, the ability of phenotypic plasticity to broadly explain the rarity ofB. perstellataversus commonness ofB. laevigatais limited. However, some contextual aspects of our plasticity findings compared with its relatively low genetic variability may shed light on the narrow range and habitat associations ofB. perstellataand suggest its vulnerability to climate warming due to acclimatory and evolutionary constraints.

    

   more » « less
5. Phenotypic plasticity of male calls in two populations of the katydid Neoconocephalus triops (Insecta: Tettigoniidae)

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1216463  

   Beckers, Oliver M. ; Kijimoto, Teiya ; Schul, Johannes ( October 2023 , Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)

   David A. Gray (Ed.)

   The ability to respond to environmental changes plays a crucial role for coping with environmental stressors related to climate change. Substantial changes in environmental conditions can overcome developmental homeostasis, exposing cryptic genetic variation. The katydidNeoconocephalus triopsis a tropical species that extended its range to the more seasonal environment of North America where it has two reproductive generations per year. The harsher winter conditions required adults to diapause which resulted in substantially different mating calls of the diapausing winter animals compared to the non-overwintering summer animals in northern Florida. The summer call corresponds to that of tropical populations, whereas the winter call represents the alternative call phenotype. We quantified call plasticity in a tropical (Puerto Rico) and a temperate population ofN. triops(Florida) that differ in experiencing winter conditions in their geographic regions. We hypothesized that the plastic call traits, i.e., double-pulse rate and call structure, are regulated independently. Further, we hypothesized that phenotypic plasticity of double-pulse rate results in quantitative changes, whereas that of call structure in qualitative changes. We varied the photoperiod and duration of diapause during male juvenile and adult development during rearing and analyzed the double-pulse rate and call structure of the animals. Double-pulse rate changed in a quantitative fashion in both populations and significant changes appeared at different developmental points, i.e., the double-pulse rate slowed down during juvenile development in Florida, whereas during adult diapause in Puerto Rico. In the Florida population, both the number of males producing and the proportion of total call time covered by the alternative call structure (= continuous calls) increased with duration spent in diapause. In the Puerto Rico population, expression of the alternative call structure was extremely rare. Our results suggest that the expression of both pulse rate and call structure was quantitative and not categorical. Our systematic variation of environmental variables demonstrated a wide range of phenotypic variation that can be induced during development. Our study highlights the evolutionary potential of hidden genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity when confronted with rapidly changing environments and their potential role in providing variation necessary for communication systems to evolve.

    

   more » « less