Information use during movement regulates how fragmentation and loss of habitat affect body size

Hillaert, Jasmijn; Vandegehuchte, Martijn L.; Hovestadt, Thomas; Bonte, Dries

doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0953

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…A comparison of daily events for the juvenile and adult stage of the consumer (Hillaert et al., ). BMR stands for the basal metabolic rate costs…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We modified the consumer-resource model presented in Hillaert, Vandegehuchte, Hovestadt, and Bonte (2018) to understand how the spatial distribution of a resource affects the size distribution of its consumer(s). The spatial distribution of the resource and its abundance differed between simulations with regard to the distance between its suitable patches (nearest neighbor distance [NND)] and its growth rate.…”

Section: Me Thodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…M = 0.14W 0.751 F I G U R E 1 A comparison of daily events for the juvenile and adult stage of the consumer (Hillaert et al, 2018). BMR stands for the basal metabolic rate costs Whether an individual moves depends on the ratio of the amount of energy present within a cell (R x,y ) and the maximum amount of energy that can be consumed by all consumers present within that cell.…”

Section: Basal Metabolic Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

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Size‐dependent movement explains why bigger is better in fragmented landscapes

Hillaert

Hovestadt

Vandegehuchte

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Body size is a fundamental trait known to allometrically scale with metabolic rate and therefore a key determinant of individual development, life history, and consequently fitness. In spatially structured environments, movement is an equally important driver of fitness. Because movement is tightly coupled with body size, we expect habitat fragmentation to induce a strong selection pressure on size variation across and within species. Changes in body size distributions are then, in turn, expected to alter food web dynamics. However, no consensus has been reached on how spatial isolation and resource growth affect consumer body size distributions. Our aim was to investigate how these two factors shape the body size distribution of consumers under scenarios of size‐dependent and size‐independent consumer movement by applying a mechanistic, individual‐based resource–consumer model. We also assessed the consequences of altered body size distributions for important ecosystem traits such as resource abundance and consumer stability. Finally, we determined those factors that explain most variation in size distributions. We demonstrate that decreasing connectivity and resource growth select for communities (or populations) consisting of larger species (or individuals) due to strong selection for the ability to move over longer distances if the movement is size‐dependent. When including size‐dependent movement, intermediate levels of connectivity result in increases in local size diversity. Due to this elevated functional diversity, resource uptake is maximized at the metapopulation or metacommunity level. At these intermediate levels of connectivity, size‐dependent movement explains most of the observed variation in size distributions. Interestingly, local and spatial stability of consumer biomass is lowest when isolation and resource growth are high. Finally, we highlight that size‐dependent movement is of vital importance for the survival of populations or communities within highly fragmented landscapes. Our results demonstrate that considering size‐dependent movement is essential to understand how habitat fragmentation and resource growth shape body size distributions—and the resulting metapopulation or metacommunity dynamics—of consumers.

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“…A comparison of daily events for the juvenile and adult stage of the consumer (Hillaert et al., ). BMR stands for the basal metabolic rate costs…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Me Thodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Basal Metabolic Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

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Size‐dependent movement explains why bigger is better in fragmented landscapes

Hillaert

Hovestadt

Vandegehuchte

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…In addition, it is itself subject to evolution (Ronce, ). Movement can be similarly important (Hillaert, Vandegehuchte, Hovestadt, & Bonte, ). Fourth, EEFs do not necessarily require rapid or contemporary evolution (Post & Palkovacs, ).…”

Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco‐evolutionary feedbacks—Theoretical models and perspectives

et al. 2018

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Theoretical models pertaining to feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary processes are prevalent in multiple biological fields. An integrative overview is currently lacking, due to little crosstalk between the fields and the use of different methodological approaches. Here, we review a wide range of models of eco‐evolutionary feedbacks and highlight their underlying assumptions. We discuss models where feedbacks occur both within and between hierarchical levels of ecosystems, including populations, communities and abiotic environments, and consider feedbacks across spatial scales. Identifying the commonalities among feedback models, and the underlying assumptions, helps us better understand the mechanistic basis of eco‐evolutionary feedbacks. Eco‐evolutionary feedbacks can be readily modelled by coupling demographic and evolutionary formalisms. We provide an overview of these approaches and suggest future integrative modelling avenues. Our overview highlights that eco‐evolutionary feedbacks have been incorporated in theoretical work for nearly a century. Yet, this work does not always include the notion of rapid evolution or concurrent ecological and evolutionary time scales. We show the importance of density‐ and frequency‐dependent selection for feedbacks, as well as the importance of dispersal as a central linking trait between ecology and evolution in a spatial context. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13241/suppinfo is available for this article.

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“…Larger individuals seem to be selected because of their abilities to cross unsuitable habitat to reach distant habitat patches (Tscharntke and Brandl 2004, Stevens et al 2014, Keinath et al 2017, Merckx et al 2018) and are also often more resistant to starvation (Peters 1983, Gergs and Jager 2014). Recent theoretical frameworks encapsulate the positive relationship between body size and landscape fragmentation (Hillaert et al 2018a, b2018b), but convincing empirical evidence is lacking, particularly in invertebrates. Moreover, all these drivers of body size clines can also counteract each other, leading to very slight or non‐significant body size clines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of landscape fragmentation and climate change on body size variation of bumblebees during the last century

et al. 2020

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Body size is a key parameter of organism fitness. While the impact of climate change on body size has received increasing attention, the long‐term consequences of landscape fragmentation are still poorly known. These two major global threats may potentially induce opposite trends: the decrease of body size in warmer environments (e.g. individuals developing faster) or the selection of larger individuals in fragmented habitats (e.g. large individuals more capable of reaching distant patches). We assessed the relationship between temperature and landscape fragmentation with mean body size during the last century, within four European regions (Austria, Belgium, England and above the Arctic circle in Scandinavia) and among queens of five bumblebee species. At the regional scale, we first analysed the variation over time of body size and the two hypothesised drivers, temperature and landscape fragmentation. Then, at the local landscape scale, we tested whether body size varied according to these drivers irrespective of the region. At the regional level, we observed a statistically clear increase of queen body size corresponding to an increase of landscape fragmentation (i.e. in Belgium and England). There was no increase of size when fragmentation did not increase (i.e. in Austria and above the Arctic Circle). Temperature also increased through time in all regions. At the local landscape scale, we found that all species were impacted by changes in both climate and landscape fragmentation but show different trends. The body size of the two largest species significantly increased at landscape level with higher fragmentation while body size of the two smallest species decreased with higher fragmentation. We highlight that, in a context of global changes, landscape fragmentation can also be a major driver of body size clines. Depending on the dispersal abilities of species, larger species could be positively selected for and overcome landscape fragmentation.

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Information use during movement regulates how fragmentation and loss of habitat affect body size

Cited by 15 publications

References 77 publications

Size‐dependent movement explains why bigger is better in fragmented landscapes

Size‐dependent movement explains why bigger is better in fragmented landscapes

Eco‐evolutionary feedbacks—Theoretical models and perspectives

Impact of landscape fragmentation and climate change on body size variation of bumblebees during the last century

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