Matching habitat choice promotes species persistence under climate change
Authored by Robin Aguilee, Felix Pellerin, Julien Cote, Elvire Bestion
Date Published: 2019
DOI: 10.1111/oik.05309
Sponsors:
French National Research Agency (ANR)
Platforms:
C++
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Model Code URLs:
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.rm93865
Abstract
Species may survive under contemporary climate change by either shifting
their range or adapting locally to the warmer conditions. Theoretical
and empirical studies recently underlined that dispersal, the central
mechanism behind these responses, may depend on the match between an
individuals' phenotype and local environment. Such matching habitat
choice is expected to induce an adaptive gene flow, but it now remains
to be studied whether this local process could promote species'
responses to climate change. Here, we investigate this by developing an
individual-based model including either random dispersal or
temperature-dependent matching habitat choice. We monitored population
composition and distribution through space and time under climate
change. Relative to random dispersal, matching habitat choice induced an
adaptive gene flow that lessened spatial range loss during climate
warming by improving populations' viability within the range (i.e.
limiting range fragmentation) and by facilitating colonization of new
habitats at the cold margin. The model even predicted range contraction
under random dispersal but range expansion under optimal matching
habitat choice. These benefits of matching habitat choice for population
persistence mostly resulted from adaptive immigration decision and were
greater for populations with larger dispersal distance and higher
emigration probability. We also found that environmental stochasticity
resulted in suboptimal matching habitat choice, decreasing the benefits
of this dispersal mode under climate change. However population
persistence was still better under suboptimal matching habitat choice
than under random dispersal. Our results highlight the urgent need to
implement more realistic mechanisms of dispersal such as matching
habitat choice into models predicting the impacts of ongoing climate
change on biodiversity.
Tags
Adaptation
Evolution
phenotypic plasticity
Dispersal
social information
Density
Population-dynamics
Individual-based
model
Gene flow
Dependent dispersal
Local adaptation
Range
shifts
Temporal variation
Species range shift