ORCID Profile
0000-0002-9859-9642
Current Organisation
La Trobe University
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Evolutionary Impacts of Climate Change | Evolutionary Biology | Biological Adaptation |
Ecosystem Adaptation to Climate Change | Effects of Climate Change and Variability on Australia (excl. Social Impacts) | Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-03-2023
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 14-03-2018
Abstract: Comparative analyses of ectotherm susceptibility to climate change often focus on thermal extremes, yet responses to aridity may be equally important. Here we focus on plasticity in desiccation resistance, a key trait shaping distributions of Drosophila species and other small ectotherms. We examined the extent to which 32 Drosophila species, varying in their distribution, could increase their desiccation resistance via phenotypic plasticity involving hardening, linking these responses to environment, phylogeny and basal resistance. We found no evidence to support the seasonality hypothesis species with higher hardening plasticity did not occupy environments with higher and more seasonal precipitation. As basal resistance increased, the capacity of species to respond via phenotypic plasticity decreased, suggesting plastic responses involving hardening may be constrained by basal resistance. Trade-offs between basal desiccation resistance and plasticity were not universal across the phylogeny and tended to occur within specific clades. Phylogeny, environment and trade-offs all helped to explain variation in plasticity for desiccation resistance but in complex ways. These findings suggest some species have the ability to counter dry periods through plastic responses, whereas others do not and this ability will depend to some extent on a species' placement within a phylogeny, along with its basal level of resistance.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 30-07-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.27.501487
Abstract: Temperature and water availability are independently hypothesised to be important abiotic drivers of the evolution of metabolic rates and gas exchange patterns, respectively. Specifically, the metabolic cold adaptation hypothesis (MCA) predicts that cold environments select for faster metabolic rates to counter the thermodynamics of biochemical reactions while the hygric hypothesis predicts that dry environments select for discontinuous gas exchange to reduce water loss. Although these two hypotheses consider different physiological traits and how they vary along different abiotic gradients, metabolic rate drives gas exchange patterns in insects meaning these two traits are inherently linked. Despite this link, the MCA and hygric hypotheses are rarely considered together and the extent to which metabolic rates and respiratory patterns vary and co-vary with temperature and aridity along climatic gradients remains unclear. We tested the MCA and hygric hypotheses within a species of endemic Fijian bee, Homalictus fijiensis , across an altitudinal gradient of 1100 m, and among four Fijian bee species, including H. fijiensis , that inhabit different altitudinal bands. In Fiji, environmental temperature is ~5°C lower in the central highlands than in the coastal lowlands with the highlands receiving ~100 mm of additional precipitation than the lowlands each month. We found an MCA-like pattern within H. fijiensis and among Fijian bee species, where metabolic rate decreased with increasing temperature, but precipitation also explained variation in metabolic rate. We also found support for the hygric hypothesis within H. fijiensis and across species. Lastly, we found that the relationship between metabolic rate and ventilation rate changed depending on precipitation of the driest month within H. fijiensis and among bee species. Bees that inhabited wet regions had low ventilation rates of greater volume but bees that inhabited drier locations had rapid ventilations of smaller volume potentially as a mechanism to exchange gas without desiccating. As the correlation between metabolic rate and ventilation rate changes across the precipitation gradient, it is possible that these two traits can evolve independently of each other in response to abiotic variables despite being positively correlated.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-03-2019
DOI: 10.1111/PHEN.12282
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 24-05-2017
Abstract: A common practice in thermal biology is to take in iduals directly from the field and estimate a range of thermal traits. These estimates are then used in studies aiming to understand broad scale distributional patterns, understanding and predicting the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, and generating predictions for climate change risk. However, the use of field-caught in iduals in such studies ignores the fact that many traits are phenotypically plastic and will be influenced by the thermal history of the focal in iduals. The current study aims to determine the extent to which estimates of upper thermal limits (CTmax), a frequently used measure for climate change risk, are sensitive to developmental and adult acclimation temperatures and whether these two forms of plasticity are reversible. Examining a temperate and tropical population of Drosophila melanogaster we show that developmental acclimation has a larger and more lasting effect on CTmax than adult acclimation. We also find evidence for an interaction between developmental and adult acclimation, particularly when flies are acclimated for a longer period, and that these effects can be population specific. These results suggest that thermal history can have lasting effects on estimates of CTmax. In addition, we provide evidence that developmental and/or adult acclimation are unlikely to contribute to substantial shifts in CTmax and that acclimation capacity may be constrained at higher temperatures.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 11-06-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.06.07.495062
Abstract: The resilience of ecosystem function under global climate change is governed by in idual species vulnerabilities and the functional groups they contribute to (e.g. decomposition, primary production, pollination, primary, secondary and tertiary consumption). Yet it remains unclear whether species that contribute to different functional groups, which underpin ecosystem function, differ in their vulnerability to climate change. It is important to examine if functional group vulnerability differs across space (e.g. tropical vs temperate latitudes) to determine if some regions will be more vulnerable to loss of ecosystem function than others, and to examine whether localized effects of particular community compositions override global patterns of functional group vulnerability. We used existing upper thermal limit data across a range of terrestrial species (N = 1,743) to calculate species warming margins (degrees distance between a species upper thermal limit and the maximum environmental temperature they inhabit), as a metric of climate change vulnerability, to determine whether species that comprise different functional groups exhibit differential vulnerability to climate change, and if vulnerability trends change across geographic space. We found that primary producers had the broadest warming margins across the globe (μ = 21.85 °C) and that tertiary consumers had the narrowest warming margins (μ = 4.37 °C), where vulnerability tended to increase with trophic level. Species that contribute towards primary production were more vulnerable in low-latitude than mid-latitude regions, but warming margins across all other functional groups did not differ across regions when evolutionary history was considered. However, when evolutionary history was excluded from the analyses (as closely related species often play similar functional roles within ecosystems demonstrating true variation in functional group warming margins) we found that pollinators are more vulnerable in mid-latitude regions and that primary producers are more vulnerable in low-latitude environments. This study provides a critical first step in linking in idual species vulnerabilities with whole ecosystem responses to climate change.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-08-2022
DOI: 10.1111/AEC.13228
Abstract: The response of bees to changing environmental temperatures has implications for pollination in natural and agricultural systems, with rising average temperatures and increased environmental stochasticity predicted to cause pollinator population declines. A growing body of evidence for the role of native bees in crop pollination suggests that understanding the temperatures at which bees are active is important for maintaining agricultural productivity under climate change. This study used two methods to s le bees at strawberry farms in south‐eastern Australia, matching activity observations with microclimate temperature to understand how temperature impacts bee activity. Apart from Apis mellifera (introduced), two native bees were identified, Lasioglossum spp. and Exoneura robusta . Apis mellifera was the most abundant species across all environmental temperatures, and E. robusta the least. Visual and sweep‐netting survey results found activity temperature range was broader for A. mellifera (16.21–41.05°C) than Lasioglossum (16.49–38.91°C) and E. robusta (26–38.82°C). The results suggest that activity temperature varies among bee species, with potential implications for community composition and plant pollination under climate change.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-10-2022
DOI: 10.1111/JEB.14104
Abstract: Sex‐based differences in physiological traits may be influenced by both evolutionary and environmental factors. Here we used male and female flies from Drosophila species reared under common conditions to examine variance in a number of physiological traits including size, starvation, desiccation and thermal tolerance. Sex‐based differences for desiccation and starvation resistance were comparable in magnitude to those for size, with females tending to be relatively more resistant than males. In contrast thermal resistance showed low ergence between the sexes. Phylogenetic signal was detected for measures of ergence between the sexes, such that species from the Sophophora clade showed larger differences between the sexes than species from the Drosophila clade. We also found that sex‐based differences in desiccation resistance, body size and starvation resistance were weakly associated with climate (annual mean temperature recipitation seasonality) but the direction and association with environment depended on phylogenetic position. The results suggest that ergence between the sexes can be linked to environmental factors, while an association with phylogeny suggests sex‐based differences persist over long evolutionary time‐frames.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.230326
Abstract: Anthropogenic climate change and invasive species are two of the greatest threats to bio ersity, affecting the survival, fitness and distribution of many species around the globe. Invasive species are often expected to have broad thermal tolerances, be highly plastic, or have high adaptive potential when faced with novel environments. Tropical island ectotherms are expected to be vulnerable to climate change as they often have narrow thermal tolerances and limited plasticity. In Fiji, only one species of endemic bee, Homalictus fijiensis, is commonly found in the lowland regions, but two invasive bee species, Braunsapis puangensis and Ceratina dentipes, have recently been introduced to Fiji. These introduced species pollinate invasive plants and might compete with H. fijiensis and other native pollinators for resources. To test whether certain performance traits promote invasiveness of some species, and to determine which species are the most vulnerable to climate change, we compared the thermal tolerance, desiccation resistance, metabolic rate, and seasonal performance adjustments of endemic and invasive bees in Fiji. The two invasive species tended to be more resistant to thermal and desiccation stress than H. fijiensis, while H. fijiensis had greater capacity to adjust their CTMAX with season, and H. fijiensis females tended to have higher metabolic rates, than B. puangensis females. These findings provide mixed support for current hypotheses for the functional basis of the success of invasive species, however, we expect the invasive bees in Fiji to be more resilient to climate change due to their increased thermal tolerance and desiccation resistance.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.193433
Abstract: Thermal performance curves (TPCs) are intended to approximate the relationship between temperature and fitness, and are commonly integrated into species distributional models for understanding climate change responses. However, TPCs may vary across traits because selection and environmental sensitivity (plasticity) differ across traits or because the timing and duration of the temperature exposure, here termed time scale, may alter trait variation. Yet, the extent to which TPCs vary temporally and across traits is rarely considered in assessments of climate change responses. Using a common garden approach, we estimated TPCs for standard metabolic rate (SMR), and activity in
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-06-2018
DOI: 10.1111/JEB.13303
Abstract: Understanding the capacity for different species to reduce their susceptibility to climate change via phenotypic plasticity is essential for accurately predicting species extinction risk. The climatic variability hypothesis suggests that spatial and temporal variation in climatic variables should select for more plastic phenotypes. However, empirical support for this hypothesis is limited. Here, we examine the capacity for ten Drosophila species to increase their critical thermal maxima (CT
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 09-2020
DOI: 10.1086/710006
Start Date: 02-2014
End Date: 01-2020
Amount: $380,219.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 11-2020
End Date: 11-2025
Amount: $846,751.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2020
End Date: 12-2022
Amount: $362,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2020
End Date: 2022
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2014
End Date: 2016
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2020
End Date: 2024
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity