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BEHAVIOURAL ECOLOGY

Adapting for extremes

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 1279–1280 (2019)Cite this article

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An assessment of how social spider populations respond to tropical cyclones sheds light on the role that extreme climatic events play in driving trait evolution contributing to local adaptation.

Extreme climatic events such as cold snaps, heat waves, floods and tropical cyclones generate abrupt changes in the environment with profound impacts on species and populations1. Yet, their inherently unpredictable nature presents significant challenges to observe and document responses to these events (for example, changes in population abundance, phenology or behaviour). This is particularly concerning given we are witnessing increasingly frequent and intense extreme climatic events but are unable to accurately predict how they may influence selection pressures, population persistence or extinction. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Little et al.2 demonstrate a consistent pattern of cyclone-induced selection for the heritable trait of colony aggressiveness in a group-living spider and show evidence that this selection pattern correlates with historic cyclone exposure over the past 100 years.

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Fig. 1: Cyclone-induced selection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Eric I. Ameca

  2. Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Eric I. Ameca

  3. Climate Change Specialist Group, Species Survival Commission, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland

    Eric I. Ameca

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  1. Eric I. Ameca
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Correspondence to Eric I. Ameca.

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Ameca, E.I. Adapting for extremes. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 1279–1280 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0971-6

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