Abstract
Species expand towards higher latitudes in response to climate warming, but the pace of this expansion is related to the physiological capacity to resist cold stress. However, few studies exist that have quantified the level of inter-population local adaptation in marine species freeze tolerance, especially in the Arctic. We investigated the importance of cold adaptation and thermal window width towards high latitudes from the temperate to the Arctic region. We measured upper and lower lethal air temperatures (i.e. LT and LT50) in temperate and Arctic populations of blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), and analysed weather data and membrane fatty acid compositions, following emersion simulations. Both populations had similar upper LT (~38 °C), but Arctic mussels survived 4°C colder air temperatures than temperate mussels (−13 vs. −9°C, respectively), corresponding to an 8% increase in their thermal window. There were strong latitudinal relationships between thermal window width and local air temperatures, indicating Arctic mussels are highly adapted to the Arctic environment where the seasonal temperature span exceeds 60°C. Local adaptation and local habitat heterogeneity thus allow leading-edge M. edulis to inhabit high Arctic intertidal zones. This intraspecific pattern provides insight into the importance of accounting for cold adaptation in climate change, conservation and biogeographic studies.
Highlights
In response to global warming, species are redistributing in a poleward direction
To demonstrate the importance of cold adaptation on species distribution, we investigated lower thermal limits in relation to local air temperature conditions in M. edulis collected from temperate Denmark and Arctic Greenland, which represents the northernmost pure M. edulis population (Mathiesen et al, 2017)
Understanding inter-population temperature sensitivity is fundamental to predict the impacts of climate change on a species distribution
Summary
In response to global warming, species are redistributing in a poleward direction. A fundamental task is to understand the impacts of climate change on species distribution and the associated effects on ecosystem functioning. The use of correlative species distribution modelling, which is based on thermal windows, has been widely applied to predict future distributional changes (Elith and Leathwick, 2009; Bennett et al, 2019). The thermal window is the temperature range between an organism’s upper and lower lethal temperature limits (LTmax and LTmin), defined as the temperature at which individuals perish, and is the temperature range an organism can physiologically tolerate and survive. For by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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