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Measuring the evolutionary potential of a winter-active parasitic wasp to climate change

  • Physiological ecology – original research
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Abstract

In temperate climates, as a consequence of warming winters, an increasing number of ectothermic species are remaining active throughout winter months instead of diapausing, rendering them increasingly vulnerable to unpredictable cold events. One species displaying a shift in overwintering strategy is the parasitoid wasp and biological control agent Aphidius avenae. The current study aimed to better understand the consequence of a changing overwintering strategy on the evolutionary potential of an insect population to adapt to the cold stress events, set to increase in frequency, even during milder winters. Using a parental half-sibling breeding design, narrow-sense heritability of the cold tolerance, morphology and longevity of A. avenae was estimated. The heritability of cold tolerance was estimated at 0.07 (CI95% = [0.00; 0.25]) for the Critical Thermal Minima (CTmin) and 0.11 (CI95% = [0.00; 0.34]) for chill coma temperature; estimates much lower than those obtained for morphological traits (tibia length 0.20 (CI95% = [0.03; 0.37]); head width 0.23 (CI95% = [0.09; 0.39]); wing surface area 0.28 (CI95% = [0.11; 0.47])), although comparable with the heritability estimate of 0.12 obtained for longevity (CI95% = [0.00; 0.25]). The heritability estimates obtained thus suggest that A. avenae possesses low adaptive potential against cold stress. If such estimates are indicative of the evolutionary potential of A. avenae cold tolerance, more emphasis may be placed on adaptive phenotypic plasticity at the individual level to persist in a changing climate, with potential implications for the biological control function they provide.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Stephanie Llopis and Charlotte Alford for assistance with morphological measurements, and Annabelle Androdias, Cécile Carré, Kévin Tougeron and Thomas Franco for assistance with parasitoid mating.

Funding

This study was funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Intra-European Fellowship for the project ‘Climland’ (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF-326943) and an Individual Fellowship for the project ‘FAB’ (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018-841952).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR 6553, ECOBIO, Université de Rennes I, Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Lucy Alford & Joan van Baaren

  2. Biogéosciences, UMR 6282, CNRS, Université Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Dijon, France

    Philippe Louâpre

  3. Laboratoire Evolution, Génome, Comportement et Ecologie (UMR CNRS-Univ. Paris-Sud-IRD, Univ. Paris-Saclay), 1 Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Florence Mougel

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  1. Lucy Alford
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  2. Philippe Louâpre
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  3. Florence Mougel
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  4. Joan van Baaren
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Contributions

PL and JvB designed the study. Data collection was performed by PL and LA and data analysis by FM and PL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by LA and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lucy Alford.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Communicated by Roland Brandl.

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Alford, L., Louâpre, P., Mougel, F. et al. Measuring the evolutionary potential of a winter-active parasitic wasp to climate change. Oecologia 194, 41–50 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04761-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04761-2

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