Pollen dispersal slows geographical range shift and accelerates ecological niche shift under climate change.
Species may survive climate change by migrating to track favorable climates and/or adapting to different climates. Several quantitative genetics models predict that species escaping extinction will change their geographical distribution while keeping the same ecological niche. We introduce pollen dispersal in these models, which affects gene flow but not directly colonization. We show that plant populations may escape extinction because of both spatial range and ecological niche shifts. Exact analytical formulas predict that increasing pollen dispersal distance slows the expected spatial range shift and accelerates the ecological niche shift. There is an optimal distance of pollen dispersal, which maximizes the sustainable rate of climate change. These conclusions hold in simulations relaxing several strong assumptions of our analytical model. Our results imply that, for plants with long distance of pollen dispersal, models assuming niche conservatism may not accurately predict their future distribution under climate change.
Laboratoire Évolution et Diversité Biologique, UMR 5174, Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École Nationale de Formation Agronomique (ENFA), 31062 Toulouse, France; robin.aguilee@univ-tlse3.fr.
Robin
R
Aguilée
Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées, École Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France; Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive, UMR 5175, CNRS, 34293 Montpellier, France;
Gaël
G
Raoul
Institut des Sciences de l'Évolution, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), UMR 5554, 34095 Montpellier, France.
François
F
Rousset
Institut des Sciences de l'Évolution, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), UMR 5554, 34095 Montpellier, France.
Ophélie
O
Ronce
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005843:Geography; D008954:Models, Biological; D010641:Phenotype; D011058:Pollen / Q000502:physiology*; D011156:Population Density; D058614:Seed Dispersal / Q000502:physiology*
adaptation; cline; extinction threshold; gene flow; spatial heterogeneity