[ECOLOG-L] climate change and ecological traps

[Bruce Robertson]

I'm curious to know if anyone is aware of any potential ecological or 
other evolutionary traps caused directly (e.g. climatic cues related to 
migratory ecology, emergence, flowering time asychrony with pollinators, 
etc) or indirectly (e.g. resultant species interactions) by climate 
change. Climate change is predicted to alter the temporal and spatial 
relationships between organisms (and organisms and their abiotic 
environment) and should be predicted, then, to alter the reliability of 
cues used by organisms to guide various behaviors. I should say that 
something like earlier departure/arrival by migratory birds may result 
in reduced fitness outcomes, but may not be a trap unless there are 
other 'available' behavioral choices for the organism to make. In this 
way, migratory departure may be a rather hardwired behavior with little 
variability. It could be possible in this example that regional 
variation in the degree of climate change could trigger some local 
populations to migrate, while not others....this might constitute a 
trap. Instead, such a case my simply represent organisms experiencing 
evolutionary lag and 'making the best of bad situation'. ...aside from 
this rather hypothetical example, traps due to climate change seem 
particularly likely and I'm surprised that I have not yet read a paper 
on this topic....I'd love to hear from anybody with either theoretical 
ideas, anecdotal evidence or research in progress as I'm putting 
together a manuscript that would benefit from such ideas.

Best,
--
Bruce Robertson
Research Associate
Kellogg Biological Station
Michigan State University
3700 East Gull Lake Drive
Hickory Corners, MI 49060
206-718-9172
rober...@msu.edu
Homepage: www.msu.edu/~roberba1/Index.html/