Dataset Information

Effects of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of a carabid beetle invading the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands.

ABSTRACT: Climatic changes can induce geographic expansion and altitudinal shifts in the distribution of invasive species by offering more thermally suitable habitats. At the remote sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands, the predatory insect Merizodus soledadinus (Coleoptera: Carabidae), introduced in 1913, rapidly invaded coastal habitats. More recent colonisation of higher elevation habitats by this species could be underlain by their increased thermal suitability as the area has warmed. This study compared the effect of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of adult M. soledadinus sampled along two altitudinal transects (from the foreshore to 250?m a.s.l.) and a horizontal lowland transect orthogonal to the seashore (400?m length). Although high inter-individual and inter-transect variations in the traits examined were present, we observed that body mass of males and females tended to decrease with elevation, and that triglyceride contents decreased with distance from the shore. Moreover, protein contents of females as well as those of 26 metabolites were influenced significantly by distance to the foreshore. These results suggest that future climate change at the Kerguelen Islands will further assist the colonisation of lowland inland and higher altitude habitats by this aggressively invasive predator, by making previously sub-optimal habitats progressively more suitable.

SUBMITTER: Ouisse T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6985133 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effects of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of a carabid beetle invading the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands.

Ouisse T T Day E E Laville L L Hendrickx F F Convey P P Renault D D

Scientific reports 20200127 1

Climatic changes can induce geographic expansion and altitudinal shifts in the distribution of invasive species by offering more thermally suitable habitats. At the remote sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands, the predatory insect Merizodus soledadinus (Coleoptera: Carabidae), introduced in 1913, rapidly invaded coastal habitats. More recent colonisation of higher elevation habitats by this species could be underlain by their increased thermal suitability as the area has warmed. This study compared t ...[more]

PMID: 31988370

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Starting from Western Europe, the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) has spread across the globe in historic times. However, most oceanic islands were colonized by mice only within the past 300 years. This makes them an excellent model for studying the evolutionary processes during early stages of new colonization. We have focused here on the Kerguelen Archipelago, located within the sub-Antarctic area and compare the patterns with samples from other Southern Ocean islands. RESULTS: We have typed 18 autosomal and six Y-chromosomal microsatellite loci and obtained mitochondrial D-loop sequences for a total of 534 samples, mainly from the Kerguelen Archipelago, but also from the Falkland Islands, Marion Island, Amsterdam Island, Antipodes Island, Macquarie Island, Auckland Islands and one sample from South Georgia. We find that most of the mice on the Kerguelen Archipelago have the same mitochondrial haplotype and all share the same major Y-chromosomal haplotype. Two small islands (Cochons Island and Cimetière Island) within the archipelago show a different mitochondrial haplotype, are genetically distinct for autosomal loci, but share the major Y-chromosomal haplotype. In the mitochondrial D-loop sequences, we find several single step mutational derivatives of one of the major mitochondrial haplotypes, suggesting an unusually high mutation rate, or the occurrence of selective sweeps in mitochondria. CONCLUSIONS: Although there was heavy ship traffic for over a hundred years to the Kerguelen Archipelago, it appears that the mice that have arrived first have colonized the main island (Grande Terre) and most of the associated small islands. The second invasion that we see in our data has occurred on islands that are detached from Grande Terre and were likely to have had no resident mice prior to their arrival. The genetic data suggest that the mice of both primary invasions originated from related source populations. Our data suggest that an area colonized by mice is refractory to further introgression, possibly due to fast adaptations of the resident mice to local conditions.

Project description:The inland soils found on the Antarctic continent represent one of the more challenging environments for microbial life on Earth. Nevertheless, Antarctic soils harbor unique bacterial and archaeal (prokaryotic) communities able to cope with extremely cold and dry conditions. These communities are not homogeneous, and the taxonomic composition and functional capabilities (genomic attributes) of these communities across environmental gradients remain largely undetermined. We analyzed the prokaryotic communities in soil samples collected from across the Shackleton Glacier region of Antarctica by coupling quantitative PCR, marker gene amplicon sequencing, and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. We found that elevation was the dominant factor explaining differences in the structures of the soil prokaryotic communities, with the drier and saltier soils found at higher elevations harboring less diverse communities and unique assemblages of cooccurring taxa. The higher-elevation soil communities also had lower maximum potential growth rates (as inferred from metagenome-based estimates of codon usage bias) and an overrepresentation of genes associated with trace gas metabolism. Together, these results highlight the utility of assessing community shifts across pronounced environmental gradients to improve our understanding of the microbial diversity found in Antarctic soils and the strategies used by soil microbes to persist at the limits of habitability. IMPORTANCE Antarctic soils represent an ideal system to study how environmental properties shape the taxonomic and functional diversity of microbial communities given the relatively low diversity of Antarctic soil microbial communities and the pronounced environmental gradients that occur across soils located in reasonable proximity to one another. Moreover, the challenging environmental conditions typical of most Antarctic soils present an opportunity to investigate the traits that allow soil microbes to persist in some of the most inhospitable habitats on Earth. We used cultivation-independent methods to study the bacterial and archaeal communities found in soil samples collected from across the Shackleton Glacier region of the Transantarctic Mountains. We show that those environmental characteristics associated with elevation have the greatest impact on the structure of these microbial communities, with the colder, drier, and saltier soils found at higher elevations sustaining less diverse communities that were distinct from those in more hospitable soils with respect to their composition, genomic attributes, and overall life-history strategies. Notably, the harsher conditions found in higher-elevation soils likely select for taxa with lower maximum potential growth rates and an increased reliance on trace gas metabolism to support growth.

Dataset Information

Effects of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of a carabid beetle invading the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands.

Publications

Effects of elevational range shift on the morphology and physiology of a carabid beetle invading the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands.

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