Expansion of species' poleward range margins is frequently attributed to climate change, but the role of rapid evolutionary adaptation in mediating or even driving such expansions remains highly uncertain. Rapid evolutionary adaptation in scattered range-edge populations is usually expected to be severely limited by low standing variation and mutational input. However, in cases where formerly isolated genetic lineages are once again exposed to one another, genetic mixing may be sufficient to facilitate rapid evolutionary change.
Henrik Krehenwinkel from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and co-workers investigate the European wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi), which has undergone remarkably rapid (and well-observed) range expansion since the 1930s. They use ecological niche modelling, thermal tolerance experiments and analysis of gene expression divergence to show that invasive populations have undergone genetic adaption for cold tolerance as they encountered novel climatic conditions. Furthermore, they find that alleles from East Asian and Northern European populations have contributed to the new adaptations during expansion.
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Brown, A. Rapid adaptation. Nature Clim Change 5, 1027 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2883
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2883
