When does adaptation prevent extinction due to climate change?Testing for evolutionary change at contracting range margins of European butterflies

We are looking for a highly-motivated biologist to explore the ecological effects of climate change on butterfly communities, and how evolution may increase their resilience. Profound effects on ecosystems are occurring as climate change generates rapid shifts in species’ distributions. Many organisms have already contracted their geographical ranges at equatorial margins, and expanded their ranges as their poleward margins become increasingly habitable. However, these responses seem limited by rates of local adaptation.
Although most generalist species have shifted their ranges, most specialists remain trapped in increasingly fragmented habitats, apparently because they cannot adapt to conditions at their ecological margins (REF2). Defining critical levels of environmental change therefore depends on understanding how easily (and how quickly) adaptive divergence can occur at ecological margins.

This project will test for evolution in European butterflies at their southern (contacting) margins in comparison to their northern (expanding) margins. Local adaptation may be easier at contracting margins, because of high local availability of genetic variation resulting from historical population responses to climatic variation in environmental refugia. By contrast, at expanding margins evoution may require the spread of novel mutations from distant populations, or may cause the rapid loss of adaptive variation (REF1).

Many butterflies reach their southern range margins in the mountains that surround Madrid, and have shown uphill contractions associated with recent climate warming (REF2). Data we have collected since 2006 suggest distinct ecological responses over this elevation gradient by two species, the Dusky Meadow Brown and Small Tortoiseshell. You will test for evidence that evolutionary responses are causing these distributional changes by: (1) Conducting butterfly, larval and host plant surveys, and comparing niches to
previous years; (2) Using population genomic analysis to test for rapid evolution in butterflies that are resilient to climate change; (3) Carrying out field transplant experiments to test for adaptive divergence in maternal behaviour and larval survival (see REF2) and to assay larval growth rate at different altitudes.

You will be based at the University of Bristol, with periods at the University of Exeter, and two field seasons in Madrid. You will receive expert training in population ecology and genomics, spatial ecology, as well as the application of evolutionary theory and spatial ecology to conservation policy.