Photic Barriers to Poleward Range-shifts

Abstract

With climate warming, organisms are shifting their ranges towards the poles, tracking their optimal thermal environments. Day-length, the driver of daily and annual timing, is, however, fixed by latitude and date. Timing and photoreception mechanisms adapted to ancestral photic environments may restrict range-shift capacity, resulting in photic barriers to range-shifts. With climate warming, organisms are shifting their ranges towards the poles, tracking their optimal thermal environments. Day-length, the driver of daily and annual timing, is, however, fixed by latitude and date. Timing and photoreception mechanisms adapted to ancestral photic environments may restrict range-shift capacity, resulting in photic barriers to range-shifts. temperature compensated, self-sustained rhythm with a duration of approximately 24 hours that persists in the absence of environmental cues and can be entrained to cues in the environment [2.Yerushalmi S. Green R.M. Evidence for the adaptive significance of circadian rhythms.Ecol. Lett. 2009; 12: 970-981Crossref PubMed Scopus (172) Google Scholar,3.Bradshaw W.E. Holzapfel C.M. Light, time, and the physiology of biotic response to rapid climate change in animals.Annu. Rev. Physiol. 2010; 72: 147-166Crossref PubMed Scopus (132) Google Scholar]. timing of recurring seasonal processes [5.Helm B. et al.Two sides of a coin: ecological and chronobiological perspectives of timing in the wild.Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci. 2017; 372: 20160246Crossref PubMed Scopus (45) Google Scholar]. characteristic of light originating from the sun (e.g., day-length, intensity, spectral composition, and solar position). duration of daylight across the diel cycle (i.e., day-length). mechanism used by an organism to track the annual cycle and schedule phenological transitions (e.g., photoperiodism, circannual rhythms, and critical photoperiods; see [3.Bradshaw W.E. Holzapfel C.M. Light, time, and the physiology of biotic response to rapid climate change in animals.Annu. Rev. Physiol. 2010; 72: 147-166Crossref PubMed Scopus (132) Google Scholar,4.Hut R.A. et al.Latitudinal clines: an evolutionary view on biological rhythms.Proc. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci. 2013; 280: 20130433Crossref PubMed Scopus (127) Google Scholar] for additional information and discussion). extension of a margin of the area in which a species resides [9.Estrada A. et al.Usefulness of species traits in predicting range shifts.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2016; 31: 190-203Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (79) Google Scholar].

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