Responses in thermal tolerance and daily activity rhythm to urban stress in Drosophila suzukii

Abstract

Cities experience changes in abiotic factors, such as warming, increases in noise and light. These changes can lead to phenotypic changes. Several studies have revealed that altered environments change phenotypes in plants and animals in cities. However, limited studies have isolated evolutionary from nongenetic changes. Here, we analyzed the evolution of thermal tolerance and diurnal activity patterns in the urban population of the fruit pest, Drosophila suzukii . Urban and rural isofemale lines were reared under constant conditions. We compared the lower and upper thermal limits (CT min and CT max , respectively), and effects of temperature exposure on the thermal limits of urban and rural populations. Common garden experiments showed that urban populations exhibit a lower CT min than rural populations, suggesting genetic difference in CT min among populations. On the other hand, the difference in CT max between urban and rural populations was not significant. Exposure to cold temperature did not affect CT min in both urban and rural populations. In contrast, exposure to hot temperature increased CT max especially in urban population, suggesting that urban populations evolved in response to urban heat. We also investigated the daily activity patterns of urban and rural populations and the effect of lifelong artificial light at night on daily activity. We found that night‐time light (dim light) reduced the total amount of activity compared to dark night condition. In addition, dim light at night altered the daily rhythm of activity and increased the activity rate at night. The effect of night light on total activity was less in urban than that in rural populations, suggesting that populations in cities evolved to mitigate decreased activity under night light. Our results showed that environmental temperature and artificial light at night evolutionarily and plastically influence ecologically important traits, such as temperature tolerance and diurnal activity.

From green to red: Urban heat stress drives leaf color evolution

“…Such high temperatures can have severe ecological impacts on the behavior, physiology, and life history of various organisms, including humans that live in cities (19)(20)(21)(22)(23). While the evolutionary effects of urban heat stress on some animals have begun to be explored (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29), the evolutionary impacts on plants have not yet been examined. Plants, which are sessile organisms highly sensitive to environmental stresses related to the ground surface (20,21,30,31), are likely to be under strong selection pressure from urban heat islands.…”

Urban Heat Island and Reduced Habitat Complexity Explain Spider Community Composition by Excluding Large and Heat-Sensitive Species

“…This study highlights the importance of species' thermal physiology in shaping community compositions through functional filtering processes. This importance is also supported by the large number of studies focusing on intraspecific variation in thermal tolerance [47][48][49][50][51]. An alternative explanation for the observed change in community-averaged thermal affinities could be an indirect effect of body size, through the covariation of species' thermal affinity and body size.…”

“…The thermal affinity of species is also expected to be an important functional trait driving species community composition at local and landscape scales [7]. If many studies have examined intraspecific changes in critical thermal limits [47][48][49][50][51] and thermal preferences [52] along UHI gradients, almost no studies have considered interspecific thermal traits to test whether changes also occur at the community level. Although a few studies have reported changes in thermal affinities of urban versus rural communities in ants and carabids [7,53], the identification of explanatory variables remains to be investigated.…”

Light Quality Effect on Internal N Retranslocation in Podocarpus macrophyllus Precultured with Exponential Nutrient Loading

“…However, it was also argued that streetlamp light was a source of light pollution for the night landscape [ 36 , 37 ]. This was partly identified because night light impaired the sustainable development of the habitats and community activities of urban animals, such as bats [ 38 ], birds [ 39 ], flies [ 40 ], crickets [ 41 ], etc. The impact of night light can be as large as it is remarkable in urban ecosystems that are supported by green spaces with greeneries [ 42 ].…”