Adapting to a warming world

Le 22 Novembre 2019
11h30 - Grand salle réunion du CEFE, 1919 route de Mende

Marcel Visser
Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Netherlands

M.Visser@nioo.knaw.nl

Spring temperatures are increasing due to climate change and this has had profound effects on the spring phenology of many organisms. These shifts in phenology however vary substantially among species, with predatory species shifting only at half the rate as their prey. This leads to so-called phenological mismatches: the phenology of predators and their prey get out of synchrony. I will give an overview of these mismatches, the evolutionary consequences and the population consequences using data from our long-term study (1955-present) on a small song bird, the great tit (Parus major). I will present data of birds, caterpillars and trees illustrating that to understand patterns of selection on the phenology we need to take the phenology of the entire food chain into account. Next, I will focus on the potential for genetic change in phenology. We study the genetics and physiology underlying phenology by creating selection lines of early and late reproducing great tits, using genomic selection. We breed selection lines birds under controlled conditions and look at their lay dates as well as at RNA expression and DNA methylation. Finally, we introduced selection line eggs into our wild population to measure their fitness. I will end with discussing how phenological mismatches have knock-on effects at the population level.

 

Recent publications:

Verhagen, I., P. Gienapp, V.N. Laine, A.C. Mateman, K. van Oers & M.E. Visser (2019) Genetic and phenotypic responses to genomic selection for timing of breeding in a wild songbird Funct Ecol 33: 1708-1721

Gienapp, P., M.P.L. Calus, V.N. Laine & M.E. Visser (2019) Genomic selection on breeding time in a wild bird population Evol Lett 3: 142–151

Visser, M.E. & P. Gienapp (2019) Evolutionary and demographic consequences of phenological mismatches Nature Ecol Evol 3: 879-885

 

 

 

Contact: 
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