Two Species with an Unusual Combination of Traits Dominate Responses of British Grasshoppers and Crickets to Environmental Change
Two Species with an Unusual Combination of Traits Dominate Responses of British Grasshoppers and Crickets to Environmental Change
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0130488
复制
发表时间：
2015-06-25
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Thomas, Chris D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Beckmann, Bjoern C.;Purse, Bethan V.;Thomas, Chris D.
近几十年来，物种对环境变化的反应存在很大差异，这增加了人们对它们的特征是否可以解释范围扩张和收缩的种间差异的兴趣。使用长期分布数据集，我们计算了 1980 年代至 2000 年代英国蚱蜢和蟋蟀的分布范围变化，并评估它们的特征（资源利用、生活史、传播能力、地理位置）是否可以解释不同物种的相对表现。我们的分析显示一些物种的分布发生了巨大变化，并且我们发现了三个性状与范围变化之间存在正相关关系：栖息地通才、在地面植被中产卵的物种以及分布在南方的物种的范围趋于增加。这些发现与这一时期环境变化的性质非常吻合（气候变暖；多样性减少和植被高度增加）。然而，性状效应主要适用于两个物种：Conocephalus discolor 和 Metrioptera roeselii，这两个物种的增幅幅度最大。一旦将它们从分析中省略，特质效应就不再具有统计显着性。先前对这两个物种的研究强调翼长二态性是其成功的关键，导致其在扩大范围边缘时具有高表型可塑性和进化生态反馈。这与我们的结果相结合表明，一种不寻常的特征组合使这两个物种能够对最近的环境变化做出极其快速的反应。我们的结果主要由两个物种主导这一事实只有通过对结果稳健性的谨慎测试而不是通过标准统计检查才变得明显。我们的结论是，基于性状的分析可能有助于评估物种对环境变化的反应，并提供对潜在机制的见解，但结果需要谨慎解释，并且预测能力可能有限。
There are large variations in the responses of species to the environmental changes of recent decades, heightening interest in whether their traits may explain inter-specific differences in range expansions and contractions. Using a long-term distributional dataset, we calculated range changes of grasshoppers and crickets in Britain between the 1980s and the 2000s and assessed whether their traits (resource use, life history, dispersal ability, geographic location) explain relative performance of different species. Our analysis showed large changes in the distributions of some species, and we found a positive relationship between three traits and range change: ranges tended to increase for habitat generalists, species that oviposit in the vegetation above ground, and for those with a southerly distribution. These findings accord well with the nature of environmental changes over this period (climatic warming; reductions in the diversity and increases in the height of vegetation). However, the trait effects applied mainly to just two species, Conocephalus discolorand Metrioptera roeselii, which had shown the greatest range increases. Once they were omitted from the analysis, trait effects were no longer statistically significant. Previous studies on these two species emphasised wing-length dimorphism as the key to their success, resulting in a high phenotypic plasticity of dispersal and evolutionary-ecological feedback at their expanding range margins. This, combined with our results, suggests that an unusual combination of traits have enabled these two species to undertake extremely rapid responses to recent environmental changes. The fact that our results are dominated by two species only became apparent through cautious testing of the results' robustness, not through standard statistical checks. We conclude that trait-based analyses may contribute to the assessment of species responses to environmental change and provide insights into underlying mechanisms, but results need to be interpreted with caution and may have limited predictive power.