Recent community warming of moths in Finland is driven by extinction in the north and colonisation in the south

Emilie E. Ellis (), Laura H. Antão, Andréa Davrinche, Jussi Mäkinen, Mark Rees, Irene Conenna, Ida-Maria Huikkonen, Reima Leinonen, Juha Pöyry, Anna Suuronen, Anna-Liisa Laine, Marjo Saastamoinen, Jarno Vanhatalo and Tomas Roslin
Additional contact information
Emilie E. Ellis: University of Helsinki
Laura H. Antão: University of Helsinki
Andréa Davrinche: University of Helsinki
Jussi Mäkinen: University of Helsinki
Mark Rees: University of Sheffield
Irene Conenna: University of Helsinki
Ida-Maria Huikkonen: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
Reima Leinonen: Transport and the Environment
Juha Pöyry: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
Anna Suuronen: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
Anna-Liisa Laine: University of Helsinki
Marjo Saastamoinen: University of Helsinki
Jarno Vanhatalo: University of Helsinki
Tomas Roslin: University of Helsinki

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract As the climate warms, species are shifting their ranges to match their climatic niches, leading to the warming of ecological communities (thermophilisation). We currently have little understanding of the population-level processes driving this community-level warming, particularly at rapidly warming high latitudes. Using 30 years of high-resolution moth monitoring data across a 1200 km latitudinal gradient in Finland, we find that higher latitude communities are experiencing more rapid thermophilisation. We attribute this spatial variation to colonisation-extinction dynamics, both for the full community and for thermal affinity groups. Our findings reveal that latitudinal variation in the pathways underpinning thermophilisation is the net outcome of opposite forces: in the north, community warming is driven by the extinction of cold-affiliated species, while in the south it is driven by high colonisation rates of warm-affiliated species. Thus, we show how species’ thermal affinities influence community reorganisation and highlight the elevated extinction risk among cold-affiliated species.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62216-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62216-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62216-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().