Local adaptation to seasonal cues at the fronts of two parallel, climate‐induced butterfly range expansions

2022/08/15 by Mats Ittonen, Alexandra Hagelin, Christer Wiklund +1 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Plant and animal studies #Species Distribution and Climate Change

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/ele.14085

openalex publication_date 2022/08/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Climate change allows species to expand polewards, but non-changing environmental features may limit expansions. Daylength is unaffected by climate and drives life cycle timing in many animals and plants. Because daylength varies over latitudes, poleward-expanding populations must adapt to new daylength conditions. We studied local adaptation to daylength in the butterfly Lasiommata megera, which is expanding northwards along several routes in Europe. Using common garden laboratory experiments with controlled daylengths, we compared diapause induction between populations from the southern-Swedish core range and recently established marginal populations from two independent expansion fronts in Sweden. Caterpillars from the northern populations entered diapause in clearly longer daylengths than those from southern populations, with the exception of caterpillars from one geographically isolated population. The northern populations have repeatedly and rapidly adapted to their local daylengths, indicating that the common use of daylength as seasonal cue need not strongly limit climate-induced insect range expansions.

Citations

• WorldClim 2: new 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas
• Some genetic consequences of ice ages, and their role in divergence and speciation

Cited by

• Rethinking diapause timing thresholds in a warming world
• Ensemble Modeling of Shifts in the Suitable Distribution and Ecological Niche of the Alpine Tibetan Medicinal Herb <i>Corydalis hendersonii Hemsl.</i> Under Climate Change and Human Activity

Discussions

• The wall brown is expanding northwards (doi.org/10.1111/ele....); it’s been declining elsewhere but doing well in Scandinavia. Yet, even when climate change makes new areas warm enough for new species [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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