Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Upslope migration is slower in insects that depend on metabolically demanding flight

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 1063–1066 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Climate change is forcing species to migrate to cooler temperatures at higher elevations, yet many taxa are dispersing slower than necessary. One yet-to-be-tested explanation for inadequate migration rates is that high-elevation environments pose physiological barriers to dispersal, particularly in species with high metabolic demands. By synthesizing across >800 species, we find evidence for metabolic constraints: upslope migration is slower in insects that rely on nature’s most expensive locomotor strategy—flight.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Relative rates of upslope migration of flight-dependent insect species compared with species that use less physiologically costly modes of locomotion.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data underlying this study can be accessed through the Dryad Digital Repository at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kh18932bs (ref. 32).

Code availability

Code underlying this can be accessed through the Dryad Digital Repository at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kh18932bs (ref. 32).

References

  1. Pörtner, H. O. et al. Scientific outcome of the IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change. (IPBES Secretariat, 2021).

  2. Martin, R., da Silva, C. R. B., Moore, M. P. & Diamond, S. E. When will a changing climate outpace adaptive evolution? Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. (in the press).

  3. Moore, M. P. et al. Sex-specific ornament evolution is a consistent feature of climatic adaptation across space and time in dragonflies. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2101458118 (2021).

  4. Parmesan, C. Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 37, 637–669 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Chen, I. C., Hill, J. K., Ohlemüller, R., Roy, D. B. & Thomas, C. D. Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming. Science 333, 1024–1026 (2011).

  6. Lenoir, J. et al. Species better track climate warming in the oceans than on land. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 1044–1059 (2020).

  7. Freeman, B. G., Song, Y., Feeley, K. J. & Zhu, K. Montane species track rising temperatures better in the tropics than in the temperate zone. Ecol. Lett. 24, 1697–1708 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Feeley, K. J., Rehm, E. & Stroud, J. T. There are many barriers to species migrations. Front. Biogeogr. 6, fb_22006 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Mamantov, M. A., Gibson‐Reinemer, D. K., Linck, E. B. & Sheldon, K. S. Climate‐driven range shifts of montane species vary with elevation. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 30, 784–794 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Rehm, E. M., Olivas, P., Stroud, J. & Feeley, K. J. Losing your edge: climate change and the conservation value of range‐edge populations. Ecol. Evol. 5, 4315–4326 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Spence, A. R. & Tingley, M. W. The challenge of novel abiotic conditions for species undergoing climate‐induced range shifts. Ecography 43, 1571–1590 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jacobsen, D. The dilemma of altitudinal shifts: caught between high temperature and low oxygen. Front. Ecol. Environ. 18, 211–218 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Altshuler, D. L. & Dudley, R. Adaptations to life at high elevation: an introduction to the symposium. Integr. Compar. Biol. 46, 3–4 (2006a).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Altshuler, D. L. & Dudley, R. The physiology and biomechanics of avian flight at high altitude. Integr. Compar. Biol. 46, 62–71 (2006b).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Reinhold, K. Energetically costly behaviour and the evolution of resting metabolic rate in insects. Funct. Ecol. 13, 217–224 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Videler, J. J. Avian Flight (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006).

  17. Harrison, J. F., Greenlee, K. J. & Verberk, W. C. Functional hypoxia in insects: definition, assessment, and consequences for physiology, ecology, and evolution. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 63, 303–325 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Neate-Clegg, M. H. & Tingley, M. W. Building a mechanistic understanding of climate-driven elevational shifts in birds. PLOS Clim. 2, e0000174 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Radchuk, V. et al. Adaptive responses of animals to climate change are most likely insufficient. Nat. Commun. 10, 3109 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Seebacher, F., White, C. R. & Franklin, C. E. Physiological plasticity increases resilience of ectothermic animals to climate change. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 61–66 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Lack, J. B., Monette, M. J., Johanning, E. J., Sprengelmeyer, Q. D. & Pool, J. E. Decanalization of wing development accompanied the evolution of large wings in high-altitude Drosophila. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 1014–1019 (2016).

  22. Moore, M. P. & Khan, F. Relatively large wings facilitate life at higher elevations among Nearctic dragonflies. J. Anim. Ecol. 92, 1613–1621 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Freeman, B. G., Scholer, M. N., Ruiz-Gutierrez, V. & Fitzpatrick, J. W. Climate change causes upslope shifts and mountaintop extirpations in a tropical bird community. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 11982–11987 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. White, C. R. & Kearney, M. R. Determinants of inter-specific variation in basal metabolic rate. J. Comp. Phys. B 183, 1–26 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Zera, A. J. & Denno, R. F. Physiology and ecology of dispersal polymorphism in insects. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 42, 207–230 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Sánchez-Bayo, F. & Wyckhuys, K. A. Worldwide decline of entomofauna: a review of its drivers. Biol. Conserv. 232, 8–27 (2020).

  27. Harvey, J. A. et al. International scientists formulate a roadmap for insect conservation and recovery. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 174–176 (2020).

  28. Perez, T. M., Stroud, J. T. & Feeley, K. J. Thermal trouble in the tropics. Science 351, 1392–1393 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Comte L., et al. BioShifts: a global geodatabase of climate-induced species redistribution over land and sea. Figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7413365 (2020).

  30. Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J. Stat. Softw. 67, 1–48 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B. & Christensen, R. H. B. lmerTest: tests in linear mixed effects models. J. Stat. Softw. 82, 1–26 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Moore, M. P. Data from: upslope migration is slower in species with high physiological demands. Dryad Digital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kh18932bs (2023).

Download references

Acknowledgements

Support was generously provided by the University of Colorado Denver (to M.P.M. and J.S.) and Washington University in St. Louis and the Georgia Institute of Technology (to J.T.S.). Conversations with J. de Mayo, J. Grady and A. Lenard and input from three reviewers improved this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Michael P. Moore & Jesse Shaich

  2. School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    James T. Stroud

  3. Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    James T. Stroud

Authors
  1. Michael P. Moore
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jesse Shaich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. James T. Stroud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.P.M. designed the study. J.S. and M.P.M. collected the data. M.P.M. and J.T.S. analysed the data. M.P.M. and J.T.S. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael P. Moore.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Climate Change thanks Dean Jacobsen, Lourenço Martins and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Table 1 Number of estimates of upslope migration (meters per year) for flying and non-flying species
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Numbers of estimates of upslope migration (meters per year) by insect family
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Comparison of elevational range shifts between flying specialists and locomotor generalists when using full set of possible random effects
Full size table
Extended Data Table 4 Comparison of elevational range shifts between flying specialists and locomotor generalists using random effects where each level had at least 6 replicates
Full size table
Extended Data Table 5 Comparison of elevational range shifts between flying specialists and locomotor generalists using random effects that account for sampling methodology
Full size table
Extended Data Table 6 Comparison of elevational range shifts between flying specialists and locomotor generalists using random effects for the quality of sampling
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Moore, M.P., Shaich, J. & Stroud, J.T. Upslope migration is slower in insects that depend on metabolically demanding flight. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 1063–1066 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01794-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01794-2

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing