REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS

You have free access to this content

Do species’ traits predict recent shifts at expanding range edges?

  1. Amy L. Angert1,*,
  2. Lisa G. Crozier2,
  3. Leslie J. Rissler3,
  4. Sarah E. Gilman4,
  5. Josh J. Tewksbury5,
  6. Amanda J. Chunco6

Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011

DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01620.x

Issue

Ecology Letters

Ecology Letters

Volume 14, Issue 7, pages 677–689, July 2011

Additional Information

How to Cite

Angert, A. L., Crozier, L. G., Rissler, L. J., Gilman, S. E., Tewksbury, J. J. and Chunco, A. J. (2011), Do species’ traits predict recent shifts at expanding range edges?. Ecology Letters, 14: 677–689. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01620.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA

  2. 2

    Fish Ecology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA 98112, USA

  3. 3

    Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA

  4. 4

    Joint Science Department, The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA 91711, USA

  5. 5

    Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98115, USA

  6. 6

    Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

*E-mail:amy.angert@colostate.edu

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 16 JUN 2011
  2. Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011
  3. Editor, Elsa Cleland Manuscript received 15 January 2011 First decision made 16 February 2011 Manuscript accepted 23 March 2011

SEARCH

SEARCH BY CITATION

ARTICLE TOOLS

View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTML) Get PDF (733K)

References

  • Askew, R.R. (1988). The Dragonflies of Europe. Harley Books, Colchester.
  • Baker, H.G. (1965). Characteristics and modes of origin of weeds. In: The Genetics of Colonizing Species (eds Baker, H.G. & Stebbins, G.L.). Academic Press, New York, pp. 147–172.
  • Beyer, H.L. (2004). Hawth’s Analysis Tools for ArcGIS. [WWW document] Available at: http://www.spatialecology.com/htools. Last accessed 25 April 2008.
  • Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Cardillo, M., Jones, K.E., MacPhee, R.D.E., Beck, R.M.D., Grenyer, R. et al. (2007). The delayed rise of present-day mammals. Nature, 446, 507–512.
  • Broenniman, O., Thuiller, W., Hughes, G., Midgley, G.F., Alkemade, J.M.R. & Guisan, A. (2006). Do geographic distribution, niche property and life form explain plants’ vulnerability to global change? Glob. Change Biol., 12, 1079–1093.
    Direct Link:
  • Brown, J.H., Mehlman, D.W. & Stevens, G.C. (1995). Spatial variation in abundance. Ecology, 76, 2028–2043.
  • Buckley, L.B., Urban, M.C., Angilletta, M.J., Crozier, L.G., Rissler, L.J. & Sears, M.W. (2010). Can mechanism inform species’ distribution models? Ecol. Lett., 13, 1041–1054.
  • Burnham, K.P. & Anderson, D.R. (2002). Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach, 2nd edn. Springer-Verlag, New York.
  • Bybee, S.M., Ogden, T.H., Branham, M.A. & Whiting, M.F. (2008). Molecules, morphology and fossils: a comprehensive approach to odonate phylogeny and the evolution of the odonate wing. Cladistics, 24, 477–514.
    Direct Link:
  • Cadotte, M.W., Murray, B.R. & Lovett-Doust, J. (2006). Ecological patterns and biological invasions: using regional species inventories in macroecology. Biol. Invasions, 8, 809–821.
  • Clark, J.S. (1998). Why trees migrate so fast: confronting theory with dispersal biology and the paleorecord. Am. Nat., 152, 204–224.
  • Collen, B., Bykova, E., Ling, S., Milner-Gulland, E.J. & Purvis, A. (2006). Extinction risk: a comparative analysis of central Asian vertebrates. Biodivers. Conserv., 15, 1859–1871.
  • Corbet, P.S. (1963). A Biology of Dragonflies. Quadrangle Books, Chicago.
  • Corbet, P.S., Suhling, F. & Soendgerath, D. (2006). Voltinism of Odonata: a review. Int. J. Odonatol., 9, 1–44.
  • Crawley, M.J. (1987). What makes a community invasible? In: Colonization, Succession and Stability (eds Gray, A.J., Crawley, M.J. & Edwards, P.J.). Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 429–453.
  • Crimmins, S.M., Dobrowski, S.Z., Greenberg, J.A., Abatzoglou, J.T. & Mynsberge, A.R. (2011). Changes in climatic water balance drive downhill shifts in plant species’ optimum elevations. Science, 331, 324–327.
  • Crozier, L. & Dwyer, G. (2006). Combining population-dynamic and ecophysiological models to predict climate-induced insect range shifts. Am. Nat., 167, 853–866.
  • Dawideit, B.A., Phillimore, A.B., Laube, I., Leisler, B. & Bohning-Gaese, K. (2009). Ecomorphological predictors of natal dispersal distances in birds. J. Anim. Ecol., 78, 388–395.
    Direct Link:
  • Durant, J.M., Hjermann, D.O., Ottersen, G. & Stenseth, N.C. (2007). Climate and the match or mismatch between predator requirements and resource availability. Climate Res., 33, 271–283.
  • Elton, C.S. (1958). The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. Methuen & Co., London.
  • Ericson, P.G.P., Zuccon, D., Ohlson, J.I., Johansson, U.S., Alvarenga, H. & Prum, R.O. (2006). Higher-level phylogeny and morphological evolution of tyrant flycatchers, cotingas, manakins, and their allies (Aves : Tyrannida). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 40, 471–483.
  • Erlich, P.R., Dobkin, D.S. & Wheye, D. (1988). The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. Simon & Shuster, New York.
  • Freckleton, R.P., Harvey, P.H. & Pagel, M. (2002). Phylogenetic analysis and comparative data: a test and review of evidence. Am. Nat., 160, 712–726.
  • Gardner, J.L., Heinsohn, R. & Joseph, L. (2009). Shifting latitudinal clines in avian body size correlate with global warming in Australian passerines. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol., 276, 3845–3852.
  • Gaston, K.J. (2003). The Structure and Dynamics of Geographic Ranges. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  • Gilman, S.E., Wethey, D.S. & Helmuth, B. (2006). Variation in the sensitivity of organismal body temperature to climate change over local and geographic scales. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 103, 9560–9565.
  • Gilman, S.E., Urban, M.C., Tewksbury, J., Gilchrist, G.W. & Holt, R.D. (2010). A framework for community interactions under climate change. Trends Ecol. Evol., 25, 325–331.
  • Gilpin, M. & Soulé, M. (1986). Minimum viable populations: processes of species extinction. In: Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity (ed. Soulé, M.E.). Sinauer, Sunderland, pp. 19–34.
  • Grantham, B.A., Eckert, G.L. & Shanks, A.L. (2003). Dispersal potential of marine invertebrates in diverse habitats. Ecol. Appl., 13, s108–s116.
  • Hackett, S.J., Kimball, R.T., Reddy, S., Bowie, R.C.K., Braun, E.L., Braun, M.J. et al. (2008). A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science, 320, 1763–1768.
  • Heikkinen, R.K., Luoto, M., Leikola, N., Pöyry, J., Settele, J., Kudrna, O. et al. (2010). Assessing the vulnerability of European butterflies to climate change using multiple criteria. Biodivers. Conserv., 19, 695–723.
  • Herron, M.D., Castoe, T.A. & Parkinson, C.L. (2004). Sciurid phylogeny and the paraphyly of Holarctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 31, 1015–1030.
  • Hickling, R., Roy, D.B., Hill, J.K. & Thomas, C.D. (2005). A northward shift of range margins in British Odonata. Glob. Change Biol., 11, 502–506.
    Direct Link:
  • Hickling, R., Roy, D.B., Hill, J.K., Fox, R. & Thomas, C.D. (2006). The distributions of a wide range of taxonomic groups are expanding polewards. Glob. Change Biol., 12, 450–455.
    Direct Link:
  • Higgins, S.I., Nathan, R. & Cain, M.L. (2003). Are long-distance dispersal events in plants usually caused by nonstandard means of dispersal? Ecology, 84, 1945–1956.
  • Hijmans, R.J. & Graham, C.H. (2006). The ability of climate envelope models to predict the effect of climate change on species distributions. Glob. Change Biol., 12, 2272–2281.
    Direct Link:
  • Hill, J.K., Thomas, C.D. & Huntley, B. (1999). Climate and habitat availability determine 20th century changes in a butterfly’s range margin. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol., 266, 1197–1206.
  • Hill, J.K., Collingham, Y.C., Thomas, C.D., Blakeley, D.S., Fox, R., Moss, D. et al. (2001). Impacts of landscape structure on butterfly range expansion. Ecol. Lett., 4, 313–321.
    Direct Link:
  • Hilsenhoff, W.L. (2001). Diversity and classification of insects and collembola. In: Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates (eds Thorp, J.H. & Covich, A.P.). Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 661–732.
  • Hof, C., Brändle, M. & Brandl, R. (2006). Lentic odonates have larger and more northern ranges than lotic species. J. Biogeogr., 33, 63–70.
    Direct Link:
  • Holzinger, B., Hülber, K., Camenisch, M. & Grabherr, G. (2008). Changes in plant species richness over the last century in the eastern Swiss Alps: elevational gradient, bedrock effects and migration rates. Plant Ecol., 195, 179–196.
  • Honnay, O., Verheyen, K., Butaye, J., Jacquemyn, H., Bossuyt, B. & Hermy, M. (2002). Possible effects of habitat fragmentation and climate change on the range of forest plant species. Ecol. Lett., 5, 525–530.
    Direct Link:
  • Ibanez, I., Clark, J.S., Dietze, M.C., Feeley, K., Hersh, M., LaDeau, S. et al. (2006). Predicting biodiversity change: outside the climate envelope, beyond the species-area curve. Ecology, 87, 1896–1906.
  • Kearney, M. & Porter, W. (2009). Mechanistic niche modelling: combining physiological and spatial data to predict species’ ranges. Ecol. Lett., 12, 334–350.
    Direct Link:
  • Kelly, A.E. & Goulden, M.L. (2008). Rapid shifts in plant distribution with recent climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 11823–11826.
  • van Kleunen, M., Weber, E. & Fischer, M. (2010). A meta-analysis of trait differences between invasive and non-invasive plant species. Ecol. Lett., 13, 235–245.
    Direct Link:
  • Kleyer, M., Bekker, R.M., Knevel, I.C., Bakker, J.P., Thompson, K., Sonnenschein, M. et al. (2008). The LEDA Traitbase: a database of life-history traits of Northwest European flora. J. Ecol., 96, 1266–1274.
    Direct Link:
  • Kolar, C.S. & Lodge, D.M. (2001). Progress in invasion biology: predicting invaders. Trends Ecol. Evol., 16, 199–204.
  • La Sorte, F.A. & Thompson, F.R. (2007). Poleward shifts in winter ranges of North American birds. Ecology, 88, 1803–1812.
  • Lawler, J.J., Shafer, S.L., White, D., Kareiva, P., Maurer, E.P., Blaustein, A.R. et al. (2009). Projected climate-induced faunal change in the Western Hemisphere. Ecology, 90, 588–597.
  • Lenoir, J., Gegout, J.C., Marquet, P.A., de Ruffray, P. & Brisse, H. (2008). A significant upward shift in plant species optimum elevation during the 20th century. Science, 320, 1768–1771.
  • Lenoir, J., Gegout, J.C., Guisan, A., Vittoz, P., Wohlgemuth, T., Zimmermann, N.E. et al. (2010). Going against the flow: potential mechanisms for unexpected downslope range shifts in a warming climate. Ecography, 33, 295–303.
  • Loarie, S.R., Carter, B.E., Hayhoe, K., McMahon, S., Moe, R., Knight, C.A. et al. (2008). Climate change and the future of California’s endemic flora. PLoS ONE, 3, e2502.
  • Loarie, S.R., Duffy, P.B., Hamilton, H., Asner, G.P., Field, C.B. & Ackerly, D.D. (2009). The velocity of climate change. Nature, 462, 1052–1055.
  • Mack, R.N. (1996). Predicting the identity and fate of plant invaders: emergent and emerging approaches. Biol. Conserv., 78, 107–121.
  • McCauley, S.J. (2010). Body size and social dominance influence breeding dispersal in male Pachydiplax longipennis (Odonata). Ecol. Entomol., 35, 377–385.
    Direct Link:
  • McKinney, M.L. (1997). Extinction vulnerability and selectivity: combining ecological and paleontological views. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 28, 495–516.
  • Miller, J.R. & Engstrom, M.D. (2008). The relationships of major lineages within peromyscine rodents: a molecular phylogenetic hypothesis and systematic reappraisal. J. Mammal., 89, 1279–1295.
  • Moles, A.T., Gruber, M.A.M. & Bonser, S.P. (2008). A new framework for predicting invasive plant species. J. Ecol., 96, 13–17.
  • Moritz, C., Patton, J.L., Conroy, C.J., Parra, J.L., White, G.C. & Beissinger, S.R. (2008). Impact of a century of climate change on small-mammal communities in Yosemite National Park, USA. Science, 322, 261–264.
  • Müller-Schneider, P. (1986). Verbreitungsbiologie der Blütenpflanzen Graubündens. Geobotanisches Institut der ETH, Stiftung Rübel, Zürich.
  • Nilsson, A.L.K., Knudsen, E., Jerstad, K., Rostad, O.W., Walseng, B., Slagsvold, T. et al. (2011). Climate effects on population fluctuations of the white-throated dipper Cinclus cinclus. J. Anim. Ecol., 80, 235–243.
    Direct Link:
  • Nussey, D.H., Postma, E., Gienapp, P. & Visser, M.E. (2005). Selection on heritable phenotypic plasticity in a wild bird population. Science, 310, 304–306.
  • Odum, H.T. & Allee, W.C. (1954). A note on the stable point of populations showing both intraspecific cooperation and disoperation. Ecology, 35, 95–97.
  • Pannell, J.R. & Barrett, S.C.H. (1998). Baker’s law revisited: reproductive assurance in a metapopulation. Evolution, 52, 657–668.
  • Paradis, E., Claude, J. & Strimmer, K. (2004). APE: analyses of phylogenetics and evolution in R language. Bioinformatics, 20, 289–290.
  • Parmesan, C. (2006). Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 37, 367–669.
  • Pelini, S.L., Keppel, J.A., Kelley, A.E. & Hellmann, J.J. (2010). Adaptation to host plants may prevent rapid insect responses to climate change. Glob. Change Biol., 16, 2923–2929.
  • Perry, A.L., Low, P.J., Ellis, J.R. & Reynolds, J.D. (2005). Climate change and distribution shifts in marine fishes. Science, 308, 1912–1915.
  • Peterson, A.T., Ortega-Huerta, M.A., Bartley, J., Sanchez-Cordero, V., Soberon, J., Buddemeier, R.H. et al. (2002). Future projections for Mexican faunas under global climate change scenarios. Nature, 416, 626–629.
  • Phillips, M.L., Murray, B.R., Leishman, M.R. & Ingram, R. (2010). The naturalization to invasion transition: are there introduction-history correlates of invasiveness in exotic plants of Australia? Austral Ecol., 35, 695–703.
    Direct Link:
  • Piaggio, A.J. & Spicer, G.S. (2001). Molecular phylogeny of the chipmunks inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome b and cytochrome oxidase II gene sequences. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 20, 335–350.
  • Poole, A.E. (2005). The Birds of North America Online. [WWW document] Available at: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/. Last accessed 15 July 2010.
  • Pöyry, J., Luoto, M., Heikkinen, R.K., Kuussaari, M. & Saarinen, K. (2009). Species traits explain recent range shifts of Finnish butterflies. Glob. Change Biol., 15, 732–743.
    Direct Link:
  • Prinzing, A., Durka, W., Klotz, S. & Brandl, R. (2002). Which species become aliens? Evol. Ecol. Res., 4, 385–405.
  • Purvis, A., Cardillo, M., Grenyer, R. & Collen, B. (2005). Correlates of extinction risk: phylogeny, biology, threat and scale. In: Phylogeny and Conservation (eds Purvis, A., Gittleman, J.L. & Brooks, T.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 295–316.
  • Pyšek, P. & Richardson, D.M. (2007). Traits associated with invasiveness in alien plants: where do we stand? In: Biological Invasions (ed. Nentwig, W.). Springer, New York, pp. 97–125.
  • R Core DevelopmentTeam (2009). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
  • Rejmánek, M. (1996). Species richness and resistance to invasions: woody species invaders of primary tropical forest. In: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Processes in Tropical Forests (eds Orians, G.D., Dirzo, R. & Cushman, J.H.). Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 153–172.
  • Roy, K., Jablonski, D. & Valentine, J.W. (2002). Body size and invasion success in marine bivalves. Ecol. Lett., 5, 163–167.
    Direct Link:
  • Schweiger, O., Settele, J., Kudrna, O., Klotz, S. & Kuhn, I. (2008). Climate change can cause spatial mismatch of trophically interacting species. Ecology, 89, 3472–3479.
  • Simberloff, D. (2009). The role of propagule pressure in biological invasions. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 40, 81–102.
  • Simmons, A.D. & Thomas, C.D. (2004). Changes in dispersal during species’ range expansions. Am. Nat., 164, 378–395.
  • Somero, G.N. (2010). The physiology of climate change: how potentials for acclimatization and genetic adaptation will determine ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. J. Exp. Biol., 213, 912–920.
  • Stephens, P.A., Sutherland, W.J. & Freckleton, R.P. (1999). What is the Allee effect? Oikos, 87, 185–190.
  • Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny. [WWW document] Available at: http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/. Last accessed 1 April 2008.
  • Thomas, C.D., Cameron, A., Green, R.E., Bakkenes, M., Beaumont, L.J., Collingham, Y.C. et al. (2004). Extinction risk from climate change. Nature, 427, 145–148.
  • Tingley, M.W., Monahan, W.B., Beissinger, S.R. & Moritz, C. (2009). Birds track their Grinnellian niche through a century of climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 106, 19637–19643.
  • Tingley, R., Romagosa, C.M., Kraus, F., Bickford, D., Phillips, B.L. & Shine, R. (2010). The frog filter: amphibian introduction bias driven by taxonomy, body size and biogeography. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 19, 496–503.
  • Vall-llosera, M. & Sol, D. (2009). A global risk assessment for the success of bird introductions. J. Appl. Ecol., 46, 787–795.
    Direct Link:
  • Viscor, G. & Fuster, J.F. (1987). Relationships between morphological parameters in birds with different flying habitats. Comp. Biochem. Physiol., 87A, 231–249.
  • Visser, M.E. (2008). Keeping up with a warming world; assessing the rate of adaptation to climate change. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol., 275, 649–659.
  • Walker, K.J. & Preston, C.D. (2006). Ecological predictors of extinction risk in the flora of lowland England, UK. Biodivers. Conserv., 15, 1913–1942.
  • Warren, M.S., Hill, J.K., Thomas, J.A., Asher, J., Fox, R., Huntley, B. et al. (2001). Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change. Nature, 414, 65–69.
  • Webb, C.O. & Donoghue, M.J. (2005). Phylomatic: tree assembly for applied phylogenetics. Mol. Ecol. Notes, 5, 181–183.
    Direct Link:
  • Wiens, J.A., Stralberg, D., Jongsomjit, D., Howell, C.A. & Snyder, M.A. (2009). Niches, models, and climate change: assessing the assumptions and uncertainties. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 106, 19729–19736.
  • Williams, S.E., Shoo, L.P., Isaac, J.L., Hoffmann, A.A. & Langham, G. (2008). Towards an integrated framework for assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change. PLoS Biol., 6, 2621–2626.
  • Williams, S.E., Williams, Y.M., VanDerWal, J., Isaac, J.L., Shoo, L.P. & Johnson, C.N. (2009). Ecological specialization and population size in a biodiversity hotspot: how rare species avoid extinction. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 106, 19737–19741.
  • Williamson, M. (1999). Invasions. Ecography, 22, 5–12.
    Direct Link:
View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTML) Get PDF (733K)