Hi Bruce,
Sounds like your manuscript would benefit from a consideration of
long-term (i.e. multi-decadal and beyond) ecological data. A useful
starting point are the following articles (and the references therein -
particularly the Froyd and Willis paper):
Froyd, C.A., Willis, K.J., 2008. Emerging issues
in
biodiversity & conservation management: the need for a
palaeoecological
perspective. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 1723-1732.
Willis, K.J., Birks, H.J.B., 2006. What is natural? The need
for a long-term perspective in biodiversity conservation. Science 314,
1261.
Cheers,
Michael.
On 6/05/2010 2:16 PM, Bruce Robertson wrote:
I'm curious
to know if anyone is aware of any potential ecological or other
evolutionary traps caused directly (e.g. climatic cues related to
migratory ecology, emergence, flowering time asychrony with
pollinators, etc) or indirectly (e.g. resultant species interactions)
by climate change. Climate change is predicted to alter the temporal
and spatial relationships between organisms (and organisms and their
abiotic environment) and should be predicted, then, to alter the
reliability of cues used by organisms to guide various behaviors. I
should say that something like earlier departure/arrival by migratory
birds may result in reduced fitness outcomes, but may not be a trap
unless there are other 'available' behavioral choices for the organism
to make. In this way, migratory departure may be a rather hardwired
behavior with little variability. It could be possible in this example
that regional variation in the degree of climate change could trigger
some local populations to migrate, while not others....this might
constitute a trap. Instead, such a case my simply represent organisms
experiencing evolutionary lag and 'making the best of bad situation'.
...aside from this rather hypothetical example, traps due to climate
change seem particularly likely and I'm surprised that I have not yet
read a paper on this topic....I'd love to hear from anybody with either
theoretical ideas, anecdotal evidence or research in progress as I'm
putting together a manuscript that would benefit from such ideas.
Best,
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