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Climate-driven range shift prompts species replacement

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Abstract

Climate change prompts warm-tolerant species upward and poleward to either displace or replace cold-tolerant species. Warm-tolerant species may replace cold-tolerant individuals with upward migration, or cold-tolerant genes if the species hybridize. We examined genetic and morphological differences between low elevation, warm-tolerant (Aphaenogaster rudis) and high elevation cold-tolerant (A. picea) ant species that form an upward-shifting ecotone in the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). The A. picea/A. rudis ecotone shifted upward ca. 200 m between the decades 1970 and 2010, and characteristic morphological traits appeared muddled where the species met, suggesting hybridization. However, we found no evidence of genetic hybridization, and the trait most associated with species identity, pigmentation, remained so across the environmental gradients. Conversely, femur length did not differentiate well between species identities, and it shifted across the environmental gradients. These results suggest that the cold tolerant A. picea, associated with high-elevation and high-latitude, was replaced by the warm-tolerant, low elevation A. rudis species. As such, these results suggest that less competitive cold-tolerant species may be replaced by more competitive cold-intolerant species with climate warming.

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Acknowledgments

Partial support for this research was provided by the SUNY Buffalo State Office of Undergraduate Research. Additional funding was provided to LDC through National Science Foundation Grant 1136703—Dimensions in Biodiversity: Collaborative Research: The climate cascade: functional and evolutionary consequences of climatic change on species, trait, and genetic diversity in a temperate ant community to PIs: Nate Sanders, Aaron Ellison, Nick Gotelli, Sara Helms Cahan, Bryan Ballif, and Rob Dunn. We also thank Highlands Biological Stations Director Jim Costa and staff for support; Victor Agraz, Deborah Jackson, Mary Schultz, Chris Broecker, Havish Deepnarain, Nicole Dexter, Jesse Helton, Jing Niu, Vidhyaben Patel, Zeph Pendleton, Rachel Power, Paula Reith, Morgan Spinelli for field help. We thank the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Nongame Conservation Section and the US Forest Service Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest for permission to collect ants. We also thank Georgia Museum of Natural History Curator and Collections Manager Richard Hoebeke for loaning us Aphaenogaster specimens from R. H. Crozier’s collections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, SUNY Buffalo State, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY, 14222, USA

    R. J. Warren II, A. McMillan, V. De Stefano, R. Gibson & P. Pinzone

  2. Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

    L. D. Chick

  3. Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20013, USA

    B. DeMarco

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  1. R. J. Warren II
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Correspondence to R. J. Warren II.

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Warren, R.J., Chick, L.D., DeMarco, B. et al. Climate-driven range shift prompts species replacement. Insect. Soc. 63, 593–601 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-016-0504-0

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