Heritable variation in the timing of emergence from hibernation
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Heritable variation in the timing of emergence from hibernation Megan N. Edic1 · Julien G. A. Martin2 · Daniel T. Blumstein1,3 Received: 19 December 2019 / Accepted: 23 June 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Global climate change is shifting many species’ phenology and has created a number of key mismatches that threaten population persistence. Phenotypically plastic individuals have the ability to adjust their behaviour in response to environmental change. While phenotypic plasticity may serve as a buffer, it is generally not known whether in case this plasticity is insufficient there is additive genetic variation in the phenological trait so that populations’ may also show an evolutionary response. We show that hibernation emergence date of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer), a trait that has been significantly advancing in recent years and is associated with increased spring temperature, is phenotypically plastic. Furthermore, we used the quantitative genetic ‘animal model’ to decompose variation in emergence date and show there is significant heritable variation. We infer that so far phenotypic plasticity has allowed marmots to track the environmental changes leading to earlier emergence and suggest that in the short run, marmots may be able to continue to plastically respond to environmental change and thus that this trait potentially can evolve when the plasticity no longer buffers the selection for earlier emergence. Keywords Hibernation · Phenology · Mismatch · Heritability · Global change biology
Introduction Climate change is altering many species’ phenology—the seasonal timing of life cycle events. Examples are seen in earlier arrival dates of migratory birds (Visser et al. 2015), earlier flowering in various plant species (Wadgymar et al. 2018), and advanced butterfly emergence dates (Polgar et al. 2013). This creates potential mismatches that can be costly for many species. Mismatches can create asynchronies in important biotic and abiotic relationships that influence the outcomes of phenological events. Furthermore, phenological variation is amplified both at higher latitudes and higher altitude * Daniel T. Blumstein [email protected] 1
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 621 Young Drive South, Los Angeles 90095‑1606, CA, USA
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Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
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The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Box 519, Crested Butte, CO 81224, USA
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Evolutionary Ecology
than lower ones causing additional stress on species at high latitude and high elevations (Post et al. 2018), which are regions experiencing the greatest climate change. The implications of phenological mismatches on species have been well documented in bird and plant systems, specifically between egg laying date of birds and their food source (Both and Visser 2001; Reed et al. 2013) and plants and their pollinators (Kudo 2014; Gezon et al. 2016). Birds that lay their eggs too early may experience peri
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