Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan
  • 2 Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK
  • 3 Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK
  • 4 Department of Life Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan. chenic@mail.ncku.edu.tw
  • 5 Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan. ckho@ntu.edu.tw
Nat Commun, 2019 10 10;10(1):4612.
PMID: 31601806 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12655-y

Abstract

Both community composition changes due to species redistribution and within-species size shifts may alter body-size structures under climate warming. Here we assess the relative contribution of these processes in community-level body-size changes in tropical moth assemblages that moved uphill during a period of warming. Based on resurvey data for seven assemblages of geometrid moths (>8000 individuals) on Mt. Kinabalu, Borneo, in 1965 and 2007, we show significant wing-length reduction (mean shrinkage of 1.3% per species). Range shifts explain most size restructuring, due to uphill shifts of relatively small species, especially at high elevations. Overall, mean forewing length shrank by ca. 5%, much of which is accounted for by species range boundary shifts (3.9%), followed by within-boundary distribution changes (0.5%), and within-species size shrinkage (0.6%). We conclude that the effects of range shifting predominate, but considering species physiological responses is also important for understanding community size reorganization under climate warming.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.