Researchers have discovered an intriguing relationship between the dark wing coloration of certain dragonfly species and their ability to withstand high temperatures. This finding sheds light on how sexual traits can co-evolve with thermal tolerance, offering insights into how species may adapt to a warming world. Dragonflies are not only fascinating creatures, but they also serve as important indicators of environmental health, making this research particularly relevant.
A Fine Line Between Thermal Traits and Sexual Signals
Predicting species’ vulnerability in the context of climate change requires knowledge about how thermal traits interact with reproductive strategies and this is essential to analyze future consequences. A surprising finding in this area has been accomplished by researchers working with the dragonfly.
The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Ethology, provide evidence that showy sexual signals used by dragonflies to attract mates (i.e. darker wing coloration) have evolved concomitant physiological processes that allow them to better handle warmer conditions. This co-adaptation permits them to cope with increasing temperature, a key determinant of species occurrence and vulnerability to climate warming.
Strange Bedfellows (Reproduction & Survival)–The Heat Absorbing Paradox
The production of so much dark wing coloration in dragonflies comes at a cost — the darker pigments absorb more heat, warming up the dragonflies. That physiological stress in turn can lead to changed behavior — find me an animal that meatbolises 15-30% less than normal and is unchanged, I prize ya median fins male from one territory will abandon and swim to another. But the species with these wing ornaments that have evolved to absorb heat better, the researchers discovered, also increased their ability to resist high temperatures.
Biologist Dr Noah Leith, of the University of Pittsburgh, adds: “Again and again we see animals risking their lives to breed – even when they have to pass through extreme temperatures. The research found that the added warming incurred by their darker wings corresponds pretty closely to the extra thermal tolerance of these species — a rather amazing case of co-evolution.
Anticipatory vulnerability in the context of climate change
In a study published real time this week in PLOS ONE, we provide new information that helps advance our ideas about how species will be able to cope with the changing climate. Some dragonfly species are already adapting their wing coloration by natural selection to reduced values under temperature increasing ( a result showed up from earlier studies). But the new study indicates that these species will be able to cope with a warmer world even if they lose their dark wing pigmentation.
“Vulnerability at just one time of the animals’ lives is not enough as Leith points out. We need ‘to appreciate that animals are whole, real organisms that respond to changing environments in many ways’ and in this context further understand how these multi-dimensional aspects drive their responses to heat waves…. This is an important part of the analysis because taking account of species’ adaptations in a more holistic way such as this can help to give more accurate predictions of which organisms might be most prone to extinction under rapid climate warming.
