Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 372, Issue 1712, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0037
Keywords
anthropogenic fragmentation; metapopulation; dispersal; short-term adaptation; island biogeography; evolutionary rescue
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Funding
- Biodiversity Research Centre, UBC
- FWO Research network EVENET
- ARSENIC project-ANR grant [14-CE02-0012]
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Fragmentation-the process by which habitats are transformed into smaller patches isolated from each other-has been identified as a major threat for biodiversity. Fragmentation has well-established demographic and population genetic consequences, eroding genetic diversity and hindering gene flow among patches. However, fragmentation should also select on life history, both predictably through increased isolation, demographic stochasticity and edge effects, and more idiosyncratically via altered biotic interactions. While species have adapted to natural fragmentation, adaptation to anthropogenic fragmentation has received little attention. In this review, we address how and whether organisms might adapt to anthropogenic fragmentation. Drawing on selected case studies and evolutionary ecology models, we show that anthropogenic fragmentation can generate selection on traits at both the patch and landscape scale, and affect the adaptive potential of populations. We suggest that dispersal traits are likely to experience especially strong selection, as dispersal both enables migration among patches and increases the risk of landing in the inhospitable matrix surrounding them. We highlight that suites of associated traits are likely to evolve together. Importantly, we show that adaptation will not necessarily rescue populations from the negative effects of fragmentation, and may even exacerbate them, endangering the entire metapopulation. This article is part of the themed issue 'Human influences on evolution, and the ecological and societal consequences'.
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