Ecological and evolutionary processes at expanding range margins

C. D. Thomas (), E. J. Bodsworth, R. J. Wilson, A. D. Simmons, Z. G. Davies, M. Musche and L. Conradt
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C. D. Thomas: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
E. J. Bodsworth: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
R. J. Wilson: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
A. D. Simmons: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
Z. G. Davies: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
M. Musche: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds
L. Conradt: Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, School of Biology, University of Leeds

Nature, 2001, vol. 411, issue 6837, 577-581

Abstract: Abstract Many animals are regarded as relatively sedentary and specialized in marginal parts of their geographical distributions1,2. They are expected to be slow at colonizing new habitats. Despite this, the cool margins of many species’ distributions have expanded rapidly in association with recent climate warming3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. We examined four insect species that have expanded their geographical ranges in Britain over the past 20 years. Here we report that two butterfly species have increased the variety of habitat types that they can colonize, and that two bush cricket species show increased fractions of longer-winged (dispersive) individuals in recently founded populations. Both ecological and evolutionary processes are probably responsible for these changes. Increased habitat breadth and dispersal tendencies have resulted in about 3- to 15-fold increases in expansion rates, allowing these insects to cross habitat disjunctions that would have represented major or complete barriers to dispersal before the expansions started. The emergence of dispersive phenotypes will increase the speed at which species invade new environments, and probably underlies the responses of many species to both past11 and future climate change.

Date: 2001
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DOI: 10.1038/35079066

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