In a nutshell, a reciprocal transplant experiment reveals local adaptation and fitness trade-offs in response to urban evolution in an acorn-dwelling ant.

ABSTRACT: Urban-driven evolution is widely evident, but whether these changes confer fitness benefits and thus represent adaptive urban evolution is less clear. We performed a multiyear field reciprocal transplant experiment of acorn-dwelling ants across urban and rural environments. Fitness responses were consistent with local adaptation: we found a survival advantage of the "home" and "local" treatments compared to "away" and "foreign" treatments. Seasonal bias in survival was consistent with evolutionary patterns of gains and losses in thermal tolerance traits across the urbanization gradient. Rural ants in the urban environment were more vulnerable in the summer, putatively due to low heat tolerance, and urban ants in the rural environment were more vulnerable in winter, putatively due to an evo

SUBMITTER: Martin RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8247984 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature