Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Evolutionary Biology, body condition, dispersal, flight morphology, immune function, Odonata, spatial sorting, stressful conditions, LIFE-HISTORY STAGES, EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY, COENAGRION-SCITULUM, FLIGHT MORPHOLOGY, TIME CONSTRAINTS, IMMUNE FUNCTION, BODY CONDITION, DISPERSAL, SIZE, TEMPERATURE, 06 Biological Sciences, 3104 Evolutionary biology

Abstract:

Individuals at the expansion front during a climate‐driven range expansion are expected to differ phenotypically from those individuals in core populations. Little information is known about the joint, potentially opposing, effects of stressful conditions at the range edge versus evolutionary changes that take place during range expansion in shaping the phenotypes at the range front. We investigated the effect of range expansion on immune function, body condition and flight‐related morphology (flight muscle ratio, wing loading, and wing aspect ratio) of field‐collected females of the poleward‐moving damselfly Coenagrion scitulum. Individuals at the expansion front had a lower body condition, which indicated more stressful conditions at the range edge. Despite the counteracting effect of the shorter growth season, the higher flight muscle ratios at the expansion front indicated a strong selection for dispersal ability during range expansion. The current study suggests that models need to incorporate the interplay of stressful conditions and evolutionary processes at the expansion front to arrive at robust predictions of future species distributions under global warming. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 112, 556–568.