Meeting Abstract

11.7  Saturday, Jan. 4 11:45  Climate variability may limit evolutionary adaptation to climate change in alpine butterflies KINGSOLVER, JG*; BUCKLEY, LB; Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Univ. of Washington, Seattle jgking@bio.unc.edu

Evolutionary potential will be important for the many alpine organisms with limited ability to track long-term climate change via movement. We integrate biophysical, demographic and evolutionary models to explore selection and evolution of wing melanin on the ventral hindwings in an alpine butterfly, Colias meadi, in response to recent and future climate changes. Higher levels of wing melanin increase the absorption of radiation and can dramatically increase body temperatures. The fitness surface (fitness as a function of wing melanin) has a single peak as a result of two opposing factors: wing melanin increases activity times and reproductive success in cool conditions, but can reduce egg production and adult survival due to short-term overheating. Preliminary results suggest that the location of the fitness peak varies substantially between years, producing temporal variation in the magnitude and direction of selection. Recent and future climate warming are predicted to cause directional evolutionary reductions in mean wing melanin, but evolutionary adaptation of alpine butterflies to climate change may be strongly limited by seasonal and annual variability in temperature and cloudiness in alpine regions.