Seasonal migration as a life history trait facilitating adaptation to climate change

Abstract

Predicting the geographic range of species and their response to variation in climate are entwined goals in conservation and evolutionary ecology. Species distribution models (SDMs) are foundational in this effort and used to visualize the geographic range of species as the spatial representation of its realized niche, or when based only on climate, its climate niche. SDMs can also forecast shifts in species range given climate change, but often lack of empirical support for causal links between climate and demography, yielding uncertain predictions. We addressed such uncertainties whilst also exploring the role of migration and resident life-histories in climate adaptation in mobile animals using 48 years of detailed demographic and climate data for song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), a polytypic species that varies in migratory life history. We developed SDMs representing demographic and climate niches of migratory and resident populations in western North America from California (CA) to Alaska (AK) using data from a focal population in British Columbia (BC) and 1.2 million citizen science observations. Distributions of resident and migrant populations predicted by each model agreed strongly (72.8%) in the region of our focal population, but less well in regions with dissimilar climates. Mismatches were largest in CA, smaller in AK, but in all cases supported the hypothesis that climate influences the evolution of migration and limits year-round residency. Our results imply that migrants predominated in our focal population a century ago, but that climate change has favored range expansions by non-migratory phenotypes and facilitated an upward shift in the elevational range of residents. We suggest long-term studies are crucial to evaluating the predictions of SDMs positing causal links between climatic conditions and species demography. We found such links to be robust regionally and particularly useful to elucidating the potential for migration or residence to facilitate adaptation to climate change.