Rapid morphological change in stream beetle museum specimens correlates with climate change

Babin-Fenske, Jennifer; Anand, Madhur; Alarie, Yves

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2311.2008.01018.x

Cited by 61 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This study adds to a growing body of literature examining patterns in organism body size over time (Babin‐Fenske, Anand, & Alarie, ; Baudron et al., ; Blanckenhorn, ; Caruso, Sears, Adams, & Lips, ; Fenberg, Self, Stewart, Wilson, & Brooks, ; Gardner et al., ; Sheridan & Bickford, ). Some of these studies (and references within) also show decreases in organism body size with increased temperature, but the pattern is not universal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Decreases in beetle body size linked to climate change and warming temperatures

Tseng

Kaur

Pari

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

112

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Body size is a fundamental ecological trait and is correlated with population dynamics, community structure and function, and ecosystem fluxes. Laboratory data from broad taxonomic groups suggest that a widespread response to a warming world may be an overall decrease in organism body size. However, given the myriad of biotic and abiotic factors that can also influence organism body size in the wild, it is unclear whether results from these laboratory assays hold in nature. Here we use datasets spanning 30 to 100 years to examine whether the body size of wild-caught beetles has changed over time, whether body size changes are correlated with increased temperatures, and we frame these results using predictions derived from a quantitative review of laboratory responses of 22 beetle species to temperature. We found that 95% of laboratory-reared beetles decreased in size with increased rearing temperature, with larger-bodied species shrinking disproportionately more than smaller-bodied beetles. In addition, the museum datasets revealed that larger-bodied beetle species have decreased in size over time, that mean beetle body size explains much of the interspecific variation in beetle responses to temperature, and that long-term beetle size changes are explained by increases in autumn temperature and decreases in spring temperature in this region. Our data demonstrate that the relationship between body size and temperature of wild-caught beetles matches relatively well with results from laboratory studies, and that variation in this relationship is largely explained by interspecific variation in mean beetle body size. This long-term beetle dataset is one of the most comprehensive arthropod body size datasets compiled to date, it improves predictions regarding the shrinking of organisms with global climate change, and together with the meta-analysis data, call for new hypotheses to explain why larger-bodied organisms may be more sensitive to temperature.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Decreases in beetle body size linked to climate change and warming temperatures

Tseng

Kaur

Pari

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A reduction in body size seems to be an initial evolutionary response of many species to climate change (Babin‐Fenske et al . ; Gardner et al . ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Northern range expansion of European populations of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi is associated with global warming–correlated genetic admixture and population‐specific temperature adaptations

2013

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Poleward range expansions are observed for an increasing number of species, which may be an effect of global warming during the past decades. However, it is still not clear in how far these expansions reflect simple geographical shifts of species ranges, or whether new genetic adaptations play a role as well. Here, we analyse the expansion of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi into Northern Europe during the last century. We have used a range-wide sampling of contemporary populations and historical specimens from museums to trace the phylogeography and genetic changes associated with the range shift. Based on the analysis of mitochondrial, microsatellite and SNP markers, we observe a higher level of genetic diversity in the expanding populations, apparently due to admixture of formerly isolated lineages. Using reciprocal transplant experiments for testing overwintering tolerance, as well as temperature preference and tolerance tests in the laboratory, we find that the invading spiders have possibly shifted their temperature niche. This may be a key adaptation for survival in Northern latitudes. The museum samples allow a reconstruction of the invasion's genetic history. A first, small-scale range shift started around 1930, in parallel with the onset of global warming. A more massive invasion of Northern Europe associated with genetic admixture and morphological changes occurred in later decades. We suggest that the latter range expansion into far Northern latitudes may be a consequence of the admixture that provided the genetic material for adaptations to new environmental regimes. Hence, global warming could have facilitated the initial admixture of populations and this resulted in genetic lineages with new habitat preferences.

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“…Photographs, like those accumulated through RASCals, are useful for collecting distribution and biodiversity data, but they cannot replace museum collections as invaluable sources of data about morphology, genetics, epidemiology, and disease spread, diet, or parasitism rates or the change in these variables through time (Roy et al, 1994;Fanning et al, 2002;Payne and Sorenson, 2002;Johnson et al, 2003;Suarez and Tsutsui, 2004;Babin-Fenske et al, 2008). Citizen science can and should be used to supplement, but not replace, the records contained within museum collections.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Science as a Tool for Augmenting Museum Collection Data from Urban Areas

2017

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Museum collections are critical to contemporary biological research, but museum acquisitions have declined in recent decades, hampering researchers' ability to use collections to assess species responses to habitat modification, urbanization, and global climate change. Citizen science may be a key method to bolster museum collections data, particularly from urban regions, where ongoing data collection is critical to our understanding of ecosystem dynamics in a highly modified and variable landscape. In this study, we compare data collected as part of the citizen-science project Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California (RASCals), hosted on the platform iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org), to data in the VertNet database (www.vertnet.org), which houses millions of museum collection records from over 250 natural-history collections, for four focal species, including a native lizard of conservation concern that has declined with urbanization, a native lizard that is widespread in urban areas, and two invasive aquatic species. We compared numbers of VertNet records over time to modern RASCals records, and the number of records collected from urban, suburban, and protected areas from both databases. For all species, citizen-science records were generated much more rapidly than museum records. For three of our four focal species, RASCals participants over 27 months documented from 70 to 750% more records than were added to the VertNet database after 1990. For the urban-tolerant southern alligator lizard, RASCals participants collected nearly 45 times more modern urban records than are contained in the VertNet database. For all other species, the majority of RASCals records were collected within suburban or other highly modified landscapes, demonstrating the value of citizen science for collecting data within urban and suburban ecosystems. As new museum acquisitions decline, citizen-science projects like RASCals may become critical to the maintenance of modern species-distribution data.

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Rapid morphological change in stream beetle museum specimens correlates with climate change

Cited by 61 publications

References 46 publications

Decreases in beetle body size linked to climate change and warming temperatures

Decreases in beetle body size linked to climate change and warming temperatures

Northern range expansion of European populations of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi is associated with global warming–correlated genetic admixture and population‐specific temperature adaptations

Citizen Science as a Tool for Augmenting Museum Collection Data from Urban Areas

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