Many predictions of how climate change will impact biodiversity have focused on range shifts using species‐wide climate tolerances, an approach that ignores the demographic mechanisms that enable species to attain broad geographic distributions. But these mechanisms matter, as responses to climate change could fundamentally differ depending on the contributions of life‐history plasticity vs. local adaptation to species‐wide climate tolerances. In particular, if local adaptation to climate is strong, populations across a species’ range—not only those at the trailing range edge—could decline sharply with global climate change. Indeed, faster rates of climate change in many high latitude regions could combine with local adaptation to generate sharper declines well away from trailing edges. Combining 15 years of demographic data from field populations across North America with growth chamber warming experiments, we show that growth and survival in a widespread tundra plant show compensatory responses to warming throughout the species’ latitudinal range, buffering overall performance across a range of temperatures. However, populations also differ in their temperature responses, consistent with adaptation to local climate, especially growing season temperature. In particular, warming begins to negatively impact plant growth at cooler temperatures for plants from colder, northern populations than for those from warmer, southern populations, both in the field and in growth chambers. Furthermore, the individuals and maternal families with the fastest growth also have the lowest water use efficiency at all temperatures, suggesting that a trade‐off between growth and water use efficiency could further constrain responses to forecasted warming and drying. Taken together, these results suggest that populations throughout species’ ranges could be at risk of decline with continued climate change, and that the focus on trailing edge populations risks overlooking the largest potential impacts of climate change on species’ abundance and distribution.
Temperature and its impact on fitness are fundamental for understanding range shifts and population dynamics under climate change. Geographic climate heterogeneity, behavioral and physiological plasticity, and thermal adaptation to local climates make predicting the responses of species to climate change complex. Using larvae from seven geographically distinct wild populations in the eastern United States of the non‐native forest pest
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10446014
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecology and Evolution
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2045-7758
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
more » « less
Abstract -
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
-
more » « less
Abstract Contemporary climate change is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. The question remains whether populations adapted to historical conditions can persist under rapid environmental change. We tested whether climate change will disrupt local adaptation and reduce population growth rates using the perennial plant
Boechera stricta (Brassicaceae). In a large‐scale field experiment conducted over five years, we exposed > 106 000 transplants to historical, current, or future climates and quantified fitness components. Low‐elevation populations outperformed local populations under simulated climate change (snow removal) across all five experimental gardens. Local maladaptation also emerged in control treatments, but it was less pronounced than under snow removal. We recovered local adaptation under snow addition treatments, which reflect historical conditions. Our results revealed that low elevation populations risk rapid decline, whereas upslope migration could enable population persistence and expansion at higher elevation locales. Local adaptation to historical conditions could increase vulnerability to climate change, even for geographically widespread species. -
more » « less
Abstract Understanding how altered temperature regimes affect harmful cyanobacterial bloom formation is essential for managing aquatic ecosystems amidst ongoing climate warming. This is difficult because algal performance can depend on both current and past environments, as plastic physiological changes (acclimation) may lag behind environmental change. Here, we investigate how temperature variation on sub‐weekly timescales affects population growth and toxin production given acclimation. We studied four ecologically important freshwater cyanobacterial strains under low‐ and high‐nutrient conditions, measuring population growth rate after acclimation and new exposure to a range of temperatures. Cold‐acclimated populations (15.7°C) outperformed fully acclimated populations (held in constant conditions) across 65% of thermal environments, while hot‐acclimated populations (35.7–42.6°C) underperformed across 75% of thermal environments. Over a 5‐day period, cold‐acclimated
Microcystis aeruginosa produced ~2.5‐fold more microcystin than hot‐acclimated populations experiencing the same temperature perturbation. Our results suggest that thermal variation and physiology interact in underappreciated ways to influence cyanobacterial growth, toxin production, and likely bloom formation. -
more » « less
Abstract A rapidly changing climate has the potential to interfere with the timing of environmental cues that ectothermic organisms rely on to initiate and regulate life history events. Short‐lived ectotherms that exhibit plasticity in their life history could increase the number of generations per year under warming climate. If many individuals successfully complete an additional generation, the population experiences an additional opportunity to grow, and a warming climate could lead to a demographic bonanza. However, these plastic responses could become maladaptive in temperate regions, where a warmer climate could trigger a developmental pathway that cannot be completed within the growing season, referred to as a developmental trap. Here we incorporated detailed demography into commonly used photothermal models to evaluate these demographic consequences of phenological shifts due to a warming climate on the formerly widespread, multivoltine butterfly (
Pieris oleracea ). Using species‐specific temperature‐ and photoperiod‐sensitive vital rates, we estimated the number of generations per year and population growth rate over the set of climate conditions experienced during the past 38 years. We predicted that populations in the southern portion of its range have added a fourth generation in recent years, resulting in higher annual population growth rates (demographic bonanzas). We predicted that populations in the Northeast United States have experienced developmental traps, where increases in the thermal window initially caused mortality of the final generation and reduced growth rates. These populations may recover if more growing degree days are added to the year. Our framework for incorporating detailed demography into commonly used photothermal models demonstrates the importance of using both demography and phenology to predict consequences of phenological shifts.
