Physiological niche and geographical range in European diving beetles (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae)

Abstract

An invited contribution to the mini-series 'Evolutionary ecology of species ranges'. Geographical ranges vary greatly in size and position, even within recent clades, but the factors driving this remain poorly understood. In aquatic beetles, thermal niche has been shown to be related to both the relative range size and position of congeners but whether other physiological parameters play a role is unknown. Metabolic plasticity may be critical for species occupying more variable thermal environments and maintaining this plasticity may trade-off against other physiological processes such as immunocompetence. Here we combine data on thermal physiology with measures of metabolic plasticity and immunocompetence to explore these relationships in Deronectes (Dytiscidae). While variation in latitudinal range extent and position was explained in part by thermal physiology, aspects of metabolic plasticity and immunocompetence also appeared important. Northerly distributed, wide-ranging species apparently used different energy reserves under thermal stress from southern endemic congeners and differed in their antibacterial defences. This is the first indication that these processes may be related to geographical range, and suggests parameters that may be worthy of exploration in other taxa.

Ecological and physiological thermal niches to understand distribution of Chagas disease vectors in Latin America

“…H). It has been proposed that the species that inhabit a wider range of climatic gradients have higher thermal tolerance (Stevens, ; Addo‐Bediako et al ., ; Sunday et al ., ), where the physiological niche is the key factor explaining the geographical range and its latitudinal variation (Cioffi et al ., ). However, Rapoport's rule on the geographical range and latitudinal position of species does not apply to the seven species tested in this study.…”

Water Beetles as Models in Ecology and Evolution

“…This result remained when controlling for phylogeny, suggesting limited influence of evolutionary ageperhaps unsurprising in a clade whose ranges have been shaped by Pleistocene climatic events which post-date their evolutionary origin (49). Differences in thermal performance may themselves be linked to metabolic plasticity (35) and setal tracheal gill densities (78,155) in the genus, and in both Deronectes and Ilybius diving performance has also been observed to differ between widespread and restricted taxa (34).…”

A genetically based ecological trade‐off contributes to setting a geographic range limit

“…Less attention has been given to the role negative genetic correlations and pleiotropy might play in generating fitness trade‐offs that prevent adaptive evolution at the range edge (Duffy et al, 2006; Hoffmann & Blows, 1994; Mauro & Ghalambor, 2020; Sgrò & Hoffmann, 2004; Tiffin et al, 2013), despite a large body of research demonstrating that such fitness trade‐offs are common across environmental gradients (Kneitel & Chase, 2004; Martin, 2015). For example, trade‐offs between traits that deal with biotic and abiotic challenges have been described for a wide range of taxa including heat tolerance and competition in copepods, fish, birds, and mammals (Chappell 1978; Fausch et al 1994; Gross and Price 2000; Martin, 2015; Willett, 2010), salinity tolerance and competition in fish and plants (Greiner et al 2001; Alcaraz et al, 2008), metabolic plasticity and bacterial defense in beetles (Cioffi et al, 2016) and desiccation tolerance and competition in barnacles (Connell, 1961). However, the genetic basis of ecological trade‐offs is unknown for all but a few species, preventing evolutionary insights into their importance as a constraint on the evolution of range limits (Anderson et al, 2013; Olsen et al, 2019).…”