Climate change-driven elevational changes among boreal nocturnal moths

Climate change-driven elevational changes among boreal nocturnal moths

Climate change has shifted geographical ranges of species northwards or to higher altitudes on elevational gradients. These changes have been associated with increases in ambient temperatures. For ectotherms in seasonal environments, however, life history theory relies largely on the length of summe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia Vol. 192; no. 4; pp. 1085 - 1098
Main Authors: Keret, Netta M., Mutanen, Marko J., Orell, Markku I., Itämies, Juhani H., Välimäki, Panu M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Science + Business Media 01-04-2020
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Abundance
Altitude
Ambient temperature
Animals
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Birch trees
Breeding
Breeding seasons
Butterflies & moths
Climate Change
Ecology
Ecosystem
Ecosystems
Elevation
Finland
GLOBAL CHANGE ECOLOGY – ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Global temperature changes
Hydrology/Water Resources
Insects
Length
Life history
Life Sciences
Moths
Mountain forests
Mountains
Overwintering
Plant Sciences
Seasons
Species
Summer
Temperature
Weather
Finland
Temporal trends
Season length
Phenology
Flight period
Lepidoptera
Altitude
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Summary:Climate change has shifted geographical ranges of species northwards or to higher altitudes on elevational gradients. These changes have been associated with increases in ambient temperatures. For ectotherms in seasonal environments, however, life history theory relies largely on the length of summer, which varies somewhat independently of ambient temperature per se. Extension of summer reduces seasonal time constraints and enables species to establish in new areas as a result of over-wintering stage reaching in due time. The reduction of time constraints is also predicted to prolong organisms’ breeding season when reproductive potential is under selection. We studied temporal change in the summer length and its effect on species’ performance by combining long-term data on the occurrence and abundance of nocturnal moths with weather conditions in a boreal location at Värriötunturi fell in NE Finland. We found that summers have lengthened on average 5 days per decade from the late 1970s, profoundly due to increasing delays in the onset of winters. Moth abundance increased with increasing season length a year before. Most of the species occurrences expanded upwards in elevation. Moth communities in low elevation pine heath forest and middle elevation mountain birch forest have become inseparable. Yet, the flight periods have remained unchanged, probably due to unpredictable variation in proximate conditions (weather) that hinders life histories from selection. We conclude that climate change-driven changes in the season length have potential to affect species’ ranges and affect the structure of insect assemblages, which may contribute to alteration of ecosystem-level processes.
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content type line 23
Communicated by Konrad Fiedler.
ISSN:0029-8549
1432-1939
DOI:10.1007/s00442-020-04632-w