Tropical Elevational Gradient Research Articles

Integrating high-resolution remote sensing and empirical wildlife detection data for climate-resilient corridors across tropical elevational gradients

Corridors are essential tools for promoting biodiversity resilience under climate change. However, corridor design studies are often conducted at spatial scales too coarse to guide implementation by local conservation practitioners. We mapped potential climate-resilient corridors linking lowland to highland protected areas within a highly biodiverse but fragmented landscape of southwestern Costa Rica (6311 km2) using least cost path and circuit theory approaches at high spatial resolution (10 m). We then applied an extensive camera trap dataset of medium-large vertebrates to examine corridor functionality. Although least cost paths (n = 40) were predominantly forested (median = 76 %, range = 57–82 %) and somewhat protected (median = 31 %, range = 3–55 %), they were also highly fragmented. Least cost paths from lowland to highland protected areas traversed medians of 252 forest patches (range = 162–328), 11,186 agriculture patches (range = 822–1,771), and 106 roads (range = 50–252), translating to 2 forest patches, 11 agriculture patches, and 1 road crossed every kilometer. Circuit analyses identified many high-connectivity areas outside of protected areas, including but not limited to least cost paths, but these high-connectivity areas were mostly small forest fragments. Nonetheless, capture rates for medium-to-large mammals at camera traps indicated that many species are currently unlikely to use unprotected, fragmented areas thought to be important for connectivity. In other words, additional conservation and restoration are necessary to establish functional corridors within the landscape. More broadly, this study exemplifies an approach to bridging the gap between regional-scale connectivity analyses and the needs of local practitioners by identifying locations that could be targeted for conservation or restoration within multi-use tropical landscapes.

Predation, but not herbivory, declines with elevation in a tropical rainforest

AbstractNaturally, insect herbivore populations are controlled by their plant hosts and predators. These ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ controls influence leaf area lost to herbivory. Bottom-up control of herbivory may be driven by leaf nutrients and plant defences. Top-down control can be driven by abundance and species richness of natural enemies, host or prey specificity, and predation strategies (e.g., active searching or sit-and-wait ‘ambush’ predation). The relative importance of bottom-up and top-down controls is unresolved but likely to vary spatially and temporally and under different environmental conditions such as changing temperature. We surveyed leaf carbon and nitrogen, leaf area loss, and attacks on plasticine caterpillars across a tropical elevational gradient in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Provence, China. We show that predatory foraging activity decreases with elevation and temperature, whereas leaf nutrients and leaf area loss from herbivory remains more or less constant. Predation patterns were driven by ants, which are thermophiles and therefore more active, abundant, and diverse at warmer, lower elevations. Leaf nutritional values are important in driving herbivory patterns as herbivory was stable across this gradient, but other factors such as mechanical defences and herbivore-induced plant volatiles demand further study. Elevational studies provide insight into how ecosystem function will shift under climate change. As increasing temperatures following climate change allows predatory groups like ants to exploit higher elevations, top-down control in high elevation habitats could increase, resulting in re-wiring of these ecologically sensitive communities. At the same time, top-down control at lower elevations may be at risk if critical thermal maxima for natural enemies are exceeded.

Correction to Bromeliad populations perform distinct ecological strategies across a tropical elevation gradient

Correction to Bromeliad populations perform distinct ecological strategies across a tropical elevation gradient

Systematic reduction in seed rain of large‐seeded and endozoochorous species in pastures compared to forests along a tropical elevational gradient

AbstractQuestionsHow do seed rain biomass and richness change from old‐growth tropical forests to pastures at different elevations? How do seed mass and seed dispersal mode change from forests to pastures across these elevations? What implications do these changes have for the recovery of deforested areas in tropical mountains?LocationOld‐growth montane forests and livestock pastures along an elevational gradient (1,000–3,000 m a.s.l.), located at Podocarpus National Park, San Francisco Reserve and surrounding agricultural lands, Andes of southern Ecuador.MethodsWe collected seed rain for a 3‐month period using 324 traps installed at eighteen 1‐ha plots across elevations. Half of the traps were installed in nine 1‐ha forest plots, and the other half in nine 1‐ha pasture plots. For each trap, we identified the seeds and measured seed rain biomass and richness. We also recorded seed traits and calculated community‐weighted means of seed mass and seed dispersal mode (proportion of endozoochory).ResultsForests received a higher seed rain biomass than pastures, but only at the lowest elevation. Seed rain richness did not differ between habitat types at all elevations. Community‐weighted means of seed mass and the proportion of endozoochorous species declined from forests to pastures, especially at the lower elevations.ConclusionsAlthough seed rain biomass and richness were overall similar between forests and pastures, large‐seeded and endozoochorous species were generally poorly represented in the seed rain of pastures compared with that of forests. These findings show that biomass and richness of seed rain may be insufficient to quantify the restoration potential of natural seed rain in deforested areas. Information on seed traits, such as seed mass and seed dispersal mode, is important to optimize restoration efforts towards the regeneration of diverse old‐growth forests along elevational gradients in tropical mountains.

Bromeliad populations perform distinct ecological strategies across a tropical elevation gradient

Abstract The effect of environmental gradients on the remarkable diversity of mountain‐associated plants and on the species' abilities to cope with climate change transcends species‐specific strategies. For instance, our understanding of the impact of thermal gradients on ecological divergences in populations of widely distributed species is limited, although it could provide important insights regarding species' response to climate change. Here, we investigated whether populations of an endemic species broadly distributed across an elevation gradient employ unique or multiple divergent ecological strategies according to specific environmental conditions. We hypothesised that populations employ distinct strategies, producing a tolerance‐avoidance trade‐off related to the thermal conditions they experience across elevations. We conducted our research with 125 individuals of Pitcairnia flammea (Bromeliaceae) sampled from various elevations spanning from sea level to ~2200 m and cultivated under the same conditions. To assess specific ecological strategies of P. flammea populations across elevations, we examined leaf temperature, heat and cold tolerances, as well as other structural/morphological, optical, physiological and biochemical leaf traits. We majorly observed that water‐saving traits diminish as elevation increases while membrane fluidity, majorly associated with unsaturated and very‐long‐chain lipids, enhances. Low‐elevation individuals of P. flammea invest in water storage tissues, which likely prevent excessive water loss through the intense transpiration rates under warming periods. Conversely, high‐elevation plants exhibit increased membrane fluidity, a possible response to the stiffening induced by low temperature. Our results revealed a tolerance‐avoidance trade‐off related to thermal strategies of populations distributed across an elevation gradient. Low‐elevation plants avoid excessive leaf temperature by investing in water‐saving traits to maintain transpiration rates. High‐elevation individuals, in turn, tend to invest in membrane properties to tolerate thermal variations, particularly cold events. Our findings challenge the conventional notion that plants' vulnerability to warming depends on species‐specific thermal tolerance by showing diverse thermal strategies on populations across an elevation gradient. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Thermal limits along tropical elevational gradients: Poison frog tadpoles show plasticity but maintain divergence across elevation

Temperature is arguably one of the most critical environmental factors impacting organisms at molecular, organismal, and ecological levels. Temperature variation across elevation may cause divergent selection in physiological critical thermal limits (CTMAX and CTMIN). Generally, high elevation populations are predicted to withstand lower environmental temperatures than low elevation populations. Organisms can also exhibit phenotypic plasticity when temperature varies, although theory and empirical evidence suggest that tropical ectotherms have relatively limited ability to acclimate. To study the effect of temperature variation along elevational transects on thermal limits, we measured CTMAX and CTMIN of 934 tadpoles of a poison frog species, Epipedobates anthonyi, along two elevational gradients (200–1700 m asl) in southwestern Ecuador to investigate their thermal tolerance across elevation. We also tested if tadpoles could plastically shift their critical thermal limits in response to exposure to different temperatures representing the range of temperatures they experience in nature (20 °C, 24 °C, and 28 °C). Overall, we found that CTMAX did not change across elevation. In contrast, CTMIN was lower at higher elevations, suggesting that elevational variation in temperature influences this thermal trait. Moreover, all populations shifted their CTMAX and CTMIN according to treatment temperatures, demonstrating an acclimation response. Overall, trends in CTMIN among high, mid, and low elevation populations were maintained despite plastic responses to treatment temperature. These results demonstrate that, for tadpoles of E. anthonyi across tropical elevational gradients, temperature acts as a selective force for CTMIN, even when populations show acclimation abilities in both, CTMAX and CTMIN. Our findings advance our understanding on how environmental variation affects organisms’ evolutionary trajectories and their abilities to persist in a changing climate in a tropical biodiversity hotspot.

Elevational patterns of species richness and community structure of understorey birds in an East African montane forest

AbstractMt. Kasigau is the northeastern most of the Eastern Arc Mountains global hotspot and harbours some endemic and threatened species, but little is known about bird community changes along its elevational gradient. We assessed the relationship between bird biodiversity metrics, season, human disturbance, elevation and temperature using mist‐netting data collected bi‐annually over a 10‐year period. Birds were sampled along the mountain's elevational gradient at four elevation levels (858, 1104, 1321 and 1547 m). Bird richness, diversity and evenness decreased with increasing altitude in both dry and wet seasons. Bird abundance declined with increasing elevation for the lower three elevation levels but peaked at the highest elevation. All diversity metrics were higher in the wet season compared to the dry season across all the years. Elevation had a greater effect on species assemblages than season, disturbance and temperature. Temperature had significant effects on abundance, diversity and richness, while disturbance had significant effects on diversity, evenness and richness. We conclude that bird assemblages in Mt. Kasigau are strongly shaped by elevational changes, while temperature and disturbance constitute important factors influencing bird conservation in the face of global warming. Our study highlights that elevation, disturbance and temperature influence bird assemblages along tropical elevational gradients.

Nutrient use by tropical ant communities varies among three extensive elevational gradients: A cross‐continental comparison

AbstractAimMany studies demonstrate that climate limits invertebrates along tropical elevational gradients, but we have only a rudimentary understanding of the role of nutrient limitation and climatic seasonality. Here we examined the relationships between ant community structure, nutrient use and season along three undisturbed elevational gradients, each from a different continent.LocationEcuador (South America), Papua New Guinea (PNG: Oceania), Tanzania (Africa).Time period2011–2014.Major taxa studiedAnts.MethodsAlong each of the three gradients, we placed six distinct nutrient types (amino acid, sucrose, sucrose + amino acid, lipid, NaCl, H2O). In total, we distributed 2370 baits at 38 sites from 203 m to 3972 m. We used generalized linear models to test for the effects of elevation and season on ant species richness and activity and relative nutrient use. We also tested if changes in ant trophic guilds corresponded to changes in the use of particular nutrients.ResultsBoth species richness and activity decreased with elevation along each gradient. However, there were significant interaction effects among elevation, region and season, as ant activity in the dry season was higher in Ecuador and Tanzania but lower in PNG. Relative nutrient use varied among regions: ant preference for some nutrients changed with increasing elevation in Ecuador (decrease in lipid use) and Tanzania (decrease in amino acid and H2O use), while season affected nutrient use in PNG. There were common trends in trophic guilds along the three elevational gradients (e.g. proportional increase of predators), but these did not explain most of the nutrient use patterns.Main conclusionWhile the structure of ant communities changed similarly with elevation, both the seasonal and elevational effects on nutrient use by ants differed between continents. We argue that regional differences in climate and nutrient availability rather than ant functional composition shape nutrient use by ants.

Microbiome Structure of a Wild Drosophila Community along Tropical Elevational Gradients and Comparison to Laboratory Lines.

Variation along environmental gradients in host-associated microbial communities is not well understood compared to free-living microbial communities. Because elevational gradients may serve as natural proxies for climate change, understanding patterns along these gradients can inform our understanding of the threats hosts and their symbiotic microbes face in a warming world. In this study, we analyzed bacterial microbiomes from pupae and adults of four Drosophila species native to Australian tropical rainforests. We sampled wild individuals at high and low elevations along two mountain gradients to determine natural diversity patterns. Further, we sampled laboratory-reared individuals from isofemale lines established from the same localities to see if any natural patterns are retained in the lab. In both environments, we controlled for diet to help elucidate other deterministic patterns of microbiome composition. We found small but significant differences in Drosophila bacterial community composition across elevation, with some notable taxonomic differences between different Drosophila species and sites. Further, we found that field-collected fly pupae had significantly richer microbiomes than laboratory-reared pupae. We also found similar microbiome composition in both types of provided diet, suggesting that the significant differences found among Drosophila microbiomes are the products of surrounding environments with different bacterial species pools, possibly bound to elevational differences in temperature. Our results suggest that comparative studies between lab and field specimens help reveal the true variability in microbiome communities that can exist within a single species. IMPORTANCE Bacteria form microbial communities inside most higher-level organisms, but we know little about how the microbiome varies along environmental gradients and between natural host populations and laboratory colonies. To explore such effects on insect-associated microbiomes, we studied the gut microbiome in four Drosophila species over two mountain gradients in tropical Australia. We also compared these data to individuals kept in the laboratory to understand how different settings changed microbiome communities. We found that field-sampled individuals had significantly higher microbiome diversity than those from the lab. In wild Drosophila populations, elevation explains a small but significant amount of the variation in their microbial communities. Our study highlights the importance of environmental bacterial sources for Drosophila microbiome composition across elevational gradients and shows how comparative studies help reveal the true flexibility in microbiome communities that can exist within a species.

Cover Image: Volume 26 Number 4, April 2023

Ecology LettersVolume 26, Issue 4 p. i-i COVER IMAGEFree Access Cover Image: Volume 26 Number 4, April 2023 First published: 18 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14043AboutPDF Comments ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Graphical Abstract The cover image is based on the Letter Changing patterns of nest predation and predator communities along a tropical elevation gradient by Gustavo A. Londoño et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14189. Image Credit: Santiago David Rivera. Comments Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Volume26, Issue4April 2023Pages i-i RelatedInformation

Bird preferences for fruit size, but not color, vary in accordance with fruit traits along a tropical elevational gradient.

Birds constitute one of the most important seed dispersal agents globally, especially in the tropics. The feeding preferences of frugivorous birds are, therefore, potentially of great ecological importance. A number of laboratory-based and observational studies have attempted to ascertain the preferences of certain bird species for certain fruit traits. However, little attention has been paid to community-wide preferences of frugivorous birds and the impact this may have on fruit traits on a broader scale. Here, we used artificial fruits of different colors and sizes to investigate community-wide fruit trait preferences of birds at three sites along an elevational gradient in Papua New Guinea. We recorded attack rates on artificial fruits as visible impressions made by a bird's beak during a feeding attempt. We also measured the colors and sizes of real fruits at each site, and the gape widths of frugivorous birds, allowing for comparisons between bird feeding preferences and bird and fruit traits. Regardless of elevation, red and purple fruits were universally preferred to green and attacked at similar rates to one another, despite strong elevational patterns in real fruit color. However, elevation had a significant effect on fruit size preferences. A weak, non-significant preference for large fruits was recorded at 700 m, while medium fruits were strongly preferred at 1700 m and small fruits at 2700 m. These patterns mirror those of both real fruit size and frugivorous bird gape width along the gradient, suggesting the potential for selective pressure of birds on fruit size at different elevations.

Predicting ecosystem productivity based on plant community traits.

With the rapid accumulation of plant trait data, major opportunities have arisen for the integration of these data into predicting ecosystem primary productivity across a range of spatial extents. Traditionally, traits have been used to explain physiological productivity at cell, organ, or plant scales, but scaling up to the ecosystem scale has remained challenging. Here, we show the need to combine measures of community-level traits and environmental factors to predict ecosystem productivity at landscape or biogeographic scales. We show how theory can extend the production ecology equation to enormous potential for integrating traits into ecological models that estimate productivity-related ecosystem functions across ecological scales and to anticipate the response of terrestrial ecosystems to global change.

Host phylogeny and elevation predict infection by avian haemosporidians in a diverse New Guinean bird community

AbstractAimThe biotic interactions hypothesis predicts that interactions between species are stronger at lower elevations compared to higher elevations. We tested whether this prediction is met by examining elevational patterns in avian haemosporidian infections in New Guinean birds.LocationYUS Conservation Area, Papua New Guinea.TaxonBirds and haemosporidia.MethodsWe collected blood samples from 2268 individuals of 66 bird species along a reef‐to‐ridgetop tropical elevational gradient covering ~3000 m of elevation. We used molecular methods to screen samples for haemosporidian parasites, and sequenced 70% of positive infections to determine the identity of parasite genera. We fit a phylogenetic generalized mixed‐effects model to test whether infection prevalence was higher at low elevations, as predicted by the biotic interactions hypothesis. Finally, we tested for phylogenetic signal in parasite prevalence and in host elevational distribution using Pagel's λ.ResultsOverall parasite prevalence was 45%. Infection prevalence decreased with elevation, though prevalence remained above ~30% even for high‐elevation communities between 2000 and 3000 m. We found strong phylogenetic signal in infection prevalence, but no phylogenetic signal in host elevational distribution. Nearly all sequenced infections (97%) were of Haemoproteus.Main ConclusionsOur results are consistent with predictions arising from the biotic interactions hypothesis. However, phylogenetic relationships among hosts are a much better predictor of infection prevalence than is elevational position: closely related bird species tend to have similar infection prevalence regardless of the elevations where they live.

The thermal niche and phylogenetic assembly of evergreen tree metacommunities in a mid-to-upper tropical montane zone.

Frost and freezing temperatures have posed an obstacle to tropical woody evergreen plants over evolutionary time scales. Thus, along tropical elevation gradients, frost may influence woody plant community structure by filtering out lowland tropical clades and allowing extra-tropical lineages to establish at higher elevations. Here we assess the extent to which frost and freezing temperatures influence the taxonomic and phylogenetic structure of naturally patchy evergreen forests (locally known as shola) along a mid-upper montane elevation gradient in the Western Ghats, India. Specifically, we examine the role of large-scale macroclimate and factors affecting local microclimates, including shola patch size and distance from shola edge, in driving shola metacommunity structure. We find that the shola metacommunity shows phylogenetic overdispersion with elevation, with greater representation of extra-tropical lineages above 2000 m, and marked turnover in taxonomic composition of shola woody communities near the frost-affected forest edge above 2000 m, from those below 2000 m. Both minimum winter temperature and patch size were equally important in determining metacommunity structure, with plots inside very large sholas dominated by older tropical lineages, with many endemics. Phylogenetic overdispersion in the upper montane shola metacommunity thus resulted from tropical lineages persisting in the interiors of large closed frost-free sholas, where their regeneration niche has been preserved over time.

Challenging ecogeographical rules: Phenotypic variation in the Mountain Treeshrew (Tupaia montana) along tropical elevational gradients.

Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules were defined to describe macroecological patterns across latitudinal gradients. Bergmann observed a positive association between body size and latitude for endothermic species while Allen described shorter appendages as latitude increases. Almost two centuries later, there is still ongoing discussion about these patterns. Temperature, the common variable in these two rules, varies predictably across both latitude and elevation. Although these rules have been assessed extensively in mammals across latitude, particularly in regions with strong seasonality, studies on tropical montane mammals are scarce. We here test for these patterns and assess the variation of several other locomotory, diet-associated, body condition, and thermoregulatory traits across elevation in the Mountain Treeshrew (Tupaia montana) on tropical mountains in Borneo. Based on morphological measurements from both the field and scientific collections, we found a complex pattern: Bergmann’s rule was not supported in our tropical mountain system, since skull length, body size, and weight decreased from the lowest elevations (<1000 m) to middle elevations (2000–2500 m), and then increased from middle elevations to highest elevations. Allen’s rule was supported for relative tail length, which decreased with elevation, but not for ear and hindfoot length, with the former remaining constant and the latter increasing with elevation. This evidence together with changes in presumed diet-related traits (rostrum length, zygomatic breadth and upper tooth row length) along elevation suggest that selective pressures other than temperature, are playing a more important role shaping the morphological variation across the distribution of the Mountain Treeshrew. Diet, food acquisition, predation pressure, and/or intra- and inter-specific competition, are some of the potential factors driving the phenotypic variation of this study system. The lack of variation in body condition might suggest local adaptation of this species across its elevational range, perhaps due to generalist foraging strategies. Finally, a highly significant temporal effect was detected in several traits but not in others, representing the first phenotypic variation temporal trends described on treeshrews.

Variation in avian morphology along a short tropical elevational gradient

AbstractPatterns across species of intraspecific phenotypic variation with environment can shed light on the underlying drivers of adaptive evolution. Phenotypic variation within a species along tropical elevational gradients is of particular interest because species with narrow elevational ranges may still experience considerably varied environmental conditions. Here, we examine morphological variation in 27 tropical bird species, spanning 11 families and 3 orders, across a 675 m elevational gradient in Western Ecuador. We analyzed a data set of six morphological variables in 3263 individual birds using multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and canonical correlation analyses (CCAs). We found that morphology varies significantly with elevation in 8 species, and that spatial segregation by age or sex was apparently not responsible for this result. The phenotypic traits that varied with elevation varied strongly by species. To the best of our knowledge, morphological variation over equally short elevational and horizontal distances across a diverse suite of vertebrate species has not previously been demonstrated.Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.

Alpha and beta phylogenetic diversities jointly reveal ant community assembly mechanisms along a tropical elevational gradient

Despite the long-standing interest in the organization of ant communities across elevational gradients, few studies have incorporated the evolutionary information to understand the historical processes that underlay such patterns. Through the evaluation of phylogenetic α and β-diversity, we analyzed the structure of leaf-litter ant communities along the Cofre de Perote mountain in Mexico and evaluated whether deterministic- (i.e., habitat filtering, interspecific competition) or stochastic-driven processes (i.e., dispersal limitation) were driving the observed patterns. Lowland and some highland sites showed phylogenetic clustering, whereas intermediate elevations and the highest site presented phylogenetic overdispersion. We infer that strong environmental constraints found at the bottom and the top elevations are favoring closely-related species to prevail at those elevations. Conversely, less stressful climatic conditions at intermediate elevations suggest interspecific interactions are more important in these environments. Total phylogenetic dissimilarity was driven by the turnover component, indicating that the turnover of ant species along the mountain is actually shifts of lineages adapted to particular locations resembling their ancestral niche. The greater phylogenetic dissimilarity between communities was related to greater temperature differences probably due to narrow thermal tolerances inherent to several ant lineages that evolved in more stable conditions. Our results suggest that the interplay between environmental filtering, interspecific competition and habitat specialization plays an important role in the assembly of leaf-litter ant communities along elevational gradients.

Using a Tropical Elevation Gradient to Evaluate the Impact of Land‐Use Intensity and Forest Restoration on the Microbial Use of Organic Matter Under Climate Change

AbstractWe investigated how legacies of land use and climate affected the microbial use of organic matter (OM) along a tropical climate gradient in Ethiopia. Four levels of land‐use intensity ranging from croplands to pristine forests were assessed along a gradient from cool and moist high altitude (MAT = 16°C, MAP = 2,200 mm) to hot and dry lowland sites (MAT = 20°C, MAP = 1,050 mm). We resolved the biomass, structure, and growth rates of microbial decomposer communities together with the rates of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) transformation. To target the legacies of climate and land use, samples were assessed at optimal moisture and standardized temperature in the laboratory. Microbial biomass and the fungal‐to‐bacterial ratio increased with both legacies of drier climates and higher land‐use intensities. In contrast, fungal growth rates increased in humid climates, but were unaffected by land use. The ratio of C mineralization to gross N mineralization decreased with higher humidity and more intensive land use, suggesting a change in microbial resource use from more nutrient‐poor to nutrient‐rich OM. Mineralization of nutrient‐poor OM implied a lower nutrient availability to microbes in arid climates and low‐intensity land uses, while the mineralization of nutrient‐rich OM in humid sites and higher intensity land uses implied a higher microbial nutrient availability there. The difference in respiration between land uses increased with ecosystem aridity, suggesting that OM turnover and soil fertility were more impacted by land use in drier climates. Together, our results suggest that drier subtropical climates will exacerbate the negative effects of land‐use intensification on OM turnover and nutrient provisioning for plants.

Independent variation of avian sensitivity to climate change and trait‐based adaptive capacity along a tropical elevational gradient

AbstractAimHow species respond to climate change is influenced by their sensitivity to climatic conditions (i.e. their climatic niche) and aspects of their adaptive capacity (e.g. their dispersal ability and ecological niche). To date, it is largely unknown whether and how species’ sensitivity to climate change and their adaptive capacity covary. However, understanding this relationship is important to predict the potential consequences of a changing climate for species assemblages. Here, we test how species’ sensitivity to climate change and trait‐based measures of their ecological adaptive capacity (i) vary along a broad elevational gradient and (ii) covary across a large number of bird species.LocationA Neotropical elevational gradient (300–3600 m.a.s.l.) in the Manú Biosphere Reserve, south‐east Peru.MethodsWe focus on 215 frugivorous bird species along a Neotropical elevational gradient. We approximate species’ sensitivity to climate change by their climatic niche breadth, based on species occurrences across South America and bioclimatic variables. In addition, we use a trait‐based approach to estimate the dispersal ability of species (approximated by their wing pointedness), their dietary niche breadth (approximated by bill width) and their habitat niche breadth (the number of used habitat classes).ResultsWe found that (i) species’ climatic niche breadth increased with elevation, while their trait‐based dispersal ability and dietary niche breadth decreased with elevation, and (ii) sensitivity to climate change and trait‐based adaptive capacity were not related across species.Main conclusionsThese results suggest different mechanisms of how species in lowland and highland assemblages might respond to climate change. The independent variation of species’ sensitivity to climate change and their trait‐based adaptive capacity suggests that accounting for both dimensions will improve assessments of species’ susceptibility to climate change and potential impacts of climate change on diverse species assemblages.

Variation in insulative feather structure in songbirds replacing each other along a tropical elevation gradient.

High‐elevation organisms are expected to evolve physiological adaptations to cope with harsh environmental conditions. Yet, evidence for such adaptive differences, especially compared to closely related lowland taxa occurring along the same elevational gradient, is rare. Revisiting an anecdotal natural history observation by O. Bangs from 1899 and based on new measurements of museum specimens, we confirmed that the high‐elevation hermit wood wren (Henicorhina anachoreta) from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, has longer, more insulative feathers on the chest and back, than its lower‐elevation counterpart the grey‐breasted wood wren (H. leucophrys). However, we did not find evidence for the same specializations in subspecies of H. leucophrys that live at high elevations on other elevational gradients in the Colombian Andes, although similar adaptive solutions have arisen in separate mountain systems like the Himalayas. Adaptations in plumage may be associated with the recurrence of elevational species replacements throughout the tropics.