ecosystem functions in the invaded regions, (iii) predict the ability of this species to invade European and transoceanic coastal waters, (iv) identify knowledge gaps that should be addressed to better understand the biology and ecology of this species both in its native and non-native habitats, which would improve our ability to predict H. stipulacea's potential to expand into new areas in the future. Considering the predicted climate change scenarios and exponential human pressures on coastal areas, we stress the need for coordinated global monitoring and mapping efforts that will record changes in H. stipulacea and its associated communities over time, across its native, invasive and prospective distributional ranges. This will require the involvement of biologists, ecologists, economists, modelers, managers, and local stakeholders.

Species distribution models (SDMs) correlate species occurrences with environmental predictors, and can be used to forecast distributions under future climates. SDMs have been criticized for not explicitly including the physiological processes underlying the species response to the environment. Recently, new methods have been suggested to combine SDMs with physiological estimates of performance (physiology‐SDMs). In this study, we compare SDM and physiology‐SDM predictions for select marine species in the Mediterranean Sea, a region subjected to exceptionally rapid climate change. We focused on six species and created physiology‐SDMs that incorporate physiological thermal performance curves from experimental data with species occurrence records. We then contrasted projections of SDMs and physiology‐SDMs under future climate (year 2100) for the entire Mediterranean Sea, and particularly the ‘warm’ trailing edge in the Levant region. Across the Mediterranean, we found cross‐validation model performance to be similar for regular SDMs and physiology‐SDMs. However, we also show that for around half the species the physiology‐SDMs substantially outperform regular SDM in the warm Levant. Moreover, for all species the uncertainty associated with the coefficients estimated from the physiology‐SDMs were much lower than in the regular SDMs. Under future climate, we find that both SDMs and physiology‐SDMs showed similar patterns, with species predicted to shift their distribution north‐west in accordance with warming sea temperatures. However, for the physiology‐SDMs predicted distributional changes are more moderate than those predicted by regular SDMs. We conclude, that while physiology‐SDM predictions generally agree with the regular SDMs, incorporation of the physiological data led to less extreme range shift forecasts. The results suggest that climate‐induced range shifts may be less drastic than previously predicted, and thus most species are unlikely to completely disappear with warming climate. Taken together, the findings emphasize that physiological experimental data can provide valuable supplemental information to predict range shifts of marine species.

The continuous nature of speciation implies that different species are found at different stages of divergence, from no- to complete reproductive isolation. This process and its underlying mechanisms are best viewed in incipient species. Moreover, the species complex can offer unique insight into how reproductive isolation (RI) has evolved. The royal irises (Iris section Oncocyclus) are a young group of species in the course of speciation, providing an ideal system for speciation study. We quantified pre- and post-zygotic reproductive barriers between the eight Israeli species of this complex and estimated the total RI among them. We tested for both pre-pollination and post-pollination reproductive barriers. Pre-pollination barriers, i.e., eco-geographic divergence and phenological differentiation were the major contributors to RI among the Iris species. On the other hand, post-pollination barriers, namely pollen–stigma interactions, fruit set, and seed viability had negligible contributions to total RI. The strength of RI was not uniform across the species complex, suggesting that species may have diverged at different rates. Overall, this study in a young, recently diverged group of species provides insight into the first steps of speciation, suggesting a crucial role of the pre-zygotic barriers.