The pace of modern life, revisited

Abstract

Wild populations must continuously respond to environmental changes or they risk extinction. Those responses can be measured as phenotypic rates of change, which can allow us to predict contemporary adaptive responses, some of which are evolutionary. About two decades ago, a database of phenotypic rates of change in wild populations was compiled. Since then, researchers have used (and expanded) this database to examine phenotypic responses to specific types of human disturbance. Here, we update the database by adding 5675 new estimates of phenotypic change. Using this newer version of the data base, now containing 7338 estimates of phenotypic change, we revisit the conclusions of four published articles. We then synthesize the expanded database to compare rates of change across different types of human disturbance. Analyses of this expanded database suggest that: (i) a small absolute difference in rates of change exists between human disturbed and natural populations, (ii) harvesting by humans results in higher rates of change than other types of disturbance, (iii) introduced populations have increased rates of change, and (iv) body size does not increase through time. Thus, findings from earlier analyses have largely held‐up in analyses of our new database that encompass a much larger breadth of species, traits, and human disturbances. Lastly, we use new analyses to explore how various types of human disturbances affect rates of phenotypic change, and we call for this database to serve as a steppingstone for further analyses to understand patterns of contemporary phenotypic change.

Evolution of thermal physiology alters the projected range of threespine stickleback under climate change

“…S4). Reducing the rate of evolution for these traits to the mean rate of trait evolution reported in Sanderson et al (2021) still results in all suitable habitat falling within the NB area under both RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. Similarly, scaling CTmin to evolve at a rate equivalent to the response expected if selection acted solely on the detected CTmin QTL on either linkage group III (PVE = 28.9%) or XXI (PVE = 53.7%) resulted in identical range distributions as the full ‘evolution’ models.…”

“…Thus, as a proxy we used a known estimate of CTmax evolution in fish, which was observed in zebrafish (0.19 haldanes; Morgan et al, 2020). Given that the evolutionary rates for CTmin and CTmax from Barrett et al (2011) and Morgan et al (2020) are quite high relative to other recorded evolutionary rates for phenotypic traits (particularly physiological traits; Sanderson et al, 2021), we also explored the influence of evolution on projected ranges when evolution occurred at more ‘typical’ rates. To do so, we allowed both CTmin and CTmax to evolve at a mean rate from a large meta-analysis of phenotypic trait evolution (0.14 haldanes; Sanderson et al 2021).…”

“…The authors acknowledge that the species collections took place on Huu-ay-aht and Sechelt First Nations traditional territories and are grateful for the opportunity to conduct their research in protected and sacred areas. We would like to thank the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre for the resources required to conduct this research, Sam Owens for the photo in Figure 1a, Peter Peller for creating Figure 1b, Carolyn Tepolt for providing the high-resolution sea surface temperature dataset from Reynolds et al (2007) during a government shutdown, as well as Kiyoko Gotanda for calculating and providing mean haldane values from the Sanderson et al (2021) database. We would like to thank Daniel Wuitchik, Sam Yeaman, Jennifer Sunday, and Patrick Nosil for feedback on the manuscript, and the anonymous peer reviewers for improving this work.…”

“…We used the hybrid families to construct genetic linkage maps and identified multiple quantitative trait loci associated with thermal preference, as well as upper and lower critical thermal limits. Using these genetically-based traits and empirically derived evolutionary rate data for this species (Barrett et al, 2011), as well as others (Morgan et al, 2020; Sanderson et al, 2021), we constructed species distribution models using a mechanistic niche area approach that integrated the trait data reported in this study and allowed those traits to evolve under two climate change scenarios, three distinct types of evolutionary models, and three evolutionary rates.…”

Evolution of thermal physiology alters the projected range of threespine stickleback under climate change

“…We used the hybrid families to construct genetic linkage maps and identified multiple quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with thermal preference, as well as upper and lower critical thermal limits. Using these genetically based traits and empirically derived evolutionary rate data for this species (Barrett et al, 2011), as well as others (Morgan et al, 2020; Sanderson et al, 2021), we constructed SDMs using a mechanistic niche area approach that integrated the trait data reported in this study and allowed those traits to evolve under two climate change scenarios, three distinct types of evolutionary models and three evolutionary rates.…”