Is the sky the limit? On the expansion threshold of a species' range.

ABSTRACT: More than 100 years after Grigg's influential analysis of species' borders, the causes of limits to species' ranges still represent a puzzle that has never been understood with clarity. The topic has become especially important recently as many scientists have become interested in the potential for species' ranges to shift in response to climate change-and yet nearly all of those studies fail to recognise or incorporate evolutionary genetics in a way that relates to theoretical developments. I show that range margins can be understood based on just two measurable parameters: (i) the fitness cost of dispersal-a measure of environmental heterogeneity-and (ii) the strength of genetic drift, which reduces genetic diversity. Together, these two parameters define an 'expansion threshold': adapta

SUBMITTER: Polechova J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6021114 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature