Bringing traits back into the equation: A roadmap to understand species redistribution.

Ecological and evolutionary theories have proposed that species traits should be important in mediating species responses to contemporary climate change; yet, empirical evidence has so far provided mixed evidence for the role of behavioral, life history, or ecological characteristics in facilitating or hindering species range shifts. As such, the utility of trait-based approaches to predict species redistribution under climate change has been called into question. We develop the perspective, supported by evidence, that trait variation, if used carefully can have high potential utility, but that past analyses have in many cases failed to identify an explanatory value for traits by not fully embracing the complexity of species range shifts. First, we discuss the relevant theory linking species traits to range shift processes at the leading (expansion) and trailing (contraction) edges of species distributions and highlight the need to clarify the mechanistic basis of trait-based approaches. Second, we provide a brief overview of range shift-trait studies and identify new opportunities for trait integration that consider range-specific processes and intraspecific variability. Third, we explore the circumstances under which environmental and biotic context dependencies are likely to affect our ability to identify the contribution of species traits to range shift processes. Finally, we propose that revealing the role of traits in shaping species redistribution may likely require accounting for methodological variation arising from the range shift estimation process as well as addressing existing functional, geographical, and phylogenetic biases. We provide a series of considerations for more effectively integrating traits as well as extrinsic and methodological factors into species redistribution research. Together, these analytical approaches promise stronger mechanistic and predictive understanding that can help society mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change on biodiversity.

Applying assessments of adaptive capacity to inform natural-resource management in a changing climate.

Adaptive capacity (AC)-the ability of a species to cope with or accommodate climate change-is a critical determinant of species vulnerability. Using information on species' AC in conservation planning is key to ensuring successful outcomes. We identified connections between a list of species' attributes (e.g., traits, population metrics, and behaviors) that were recently proposed for assessing species' AC and management actions that may enhance AC for species at risk of extinction. Management actions were identified based on evidence from the literature, a review of actions used in other climate adaptation guidance, and our collective experience in diverse fields of global-change ecology and climate adaptation. Selected management actions support the general AC pathways of persist in place or shift in space, in response to contemporary climate change. Some actions, such as genetic manipulations, can be used to directly alter the ability of species to cope with climate change, whereas other actions can indirectly enhance AC by addressing ecological or anthropogenic constraints on the expression of a species' innate abilities to adapt. Ours is the first synthesis of potential management actions directly linked to AC. Focusing on AC attributes helps improve understanding of how and why aspects of climate are affecting organisms, as well as the mechanisms by which management interventions affect a species' AC and climate change vulnerability. Adaptive-capacity-informed climate adaptation is needed to build connections among the causes of vulnerability, AC, and proposed management actions that can facilitate AC and reduce vulnerability in support of evolving conservation paradigms.

Aplicación de Evaluaciones de la Capacidad Adaptativa para Informar la Gestión de Recursos Naturales en un Clima Cambiante Resumen La capacidad adaptativa (CA) - la habilidad que tiene una especie para sobrellevar o acomodarse al cambio climático - es una determinante crítica de la vulnerabilidad de una especie. El uso de la información sobre la CA de una especie dentro de la planeación de la conservación es de suma importancia para asegurar resultados exitosos. Identificamos las conexiones entre una lista de atributos de las especies (p. ej.: características, métricas poblacionales, comportamientos) que fueron propuestos recientemente para la evaluación de la CA de las especies y las acciones de gestión que pueden mejorar la CA para las especies que se encuentran en riesgo de extinción. Las acciones de gestión fueron identificadas con base en la evidencia de la literatura, una revisión de acciones usadas en otras guías de adaptación climática y nuestra experiencia colectiva en diferentes campos de la ecología del cambio global y la adaptación climática. Ciertas acciones de gestión respaldan las vías generales de CA de persistir en el lugar o cambiar en el espacio como respuesta al cambio climático contemporáneo. Algunas acciones, como la manipulación genética, pueden usarse para alterar directamente la habilidad que tienen las especies para sobrellevar el cambio climático, mientras que otras acciones pueden mejorar indirectamente la CA al combatir las restricciones ecológicas o antropogénicas que existen sobre la expresión de las habilidades innatas de una especie para adaptarse. Nuestra síntesis es la primera que aborda acciones potenciales de gestión conectadas directamente con la CA. Enfocarse en los atributos de la CA ayuda a mejorar el conocimiento sobre cómo y por qué los aspectos climáticos están afectando a los organismos, así como los mecanismos mediante los cuales las intervenciones de gestión afectan la CA y la vulnerabilidad al cambio climático de la especie. La adaptación climática orientada por la capacidad adaptativa es necesaria para establecer conexiones entre las causas de la vulnerabilidad, la CA y las acciones de gestión propuestas que pueden facilitar la CA y reducir la vulnerabilidad como apoyo a los paradigmas cambiantes de la conservación.

Supporting the adaptive capacity of species through more effective knowledge exchange with conservation practitioners.

There is an imperative for conservation practitioners to help biodiversity adapt to accelerating environmental change. Evolutionary biologists are well-positioned to inform the development of evidence-based management strategies that support the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems. Conservation practitioners increasingly accept that management practices must accommodate rapid environmental change, but harbour concerns about how to apply recommended changes to their management contexts. Given the interest from both conservation practitioners and evolutionary biologists in adjusting management practices, we believe there is an opportunity to accelerate the required changes by promoting closer collaboration between these two groups. We highlight how evolutionary biologists can harness lessons from other disciplines about how to foster effective knowledge exchange to make a substantive contribution to the development of effective conservation practices. These lessons include the following: (1) recognizing why practitioners do and do not use scientific evidence; (2) building an evidence base that will influence management decisions; (3) translating theory into a format that conservation practitioners can use to inform management practices; and (4) developing strategies for effective knowledge exchange. Although efforts will be required on both sides, we believe there are rewards for both practitioners and evolutionary biologists, not least of which is fostering practices to help support the long-term persistence of species.

Real Men Don't Cry: Skill Expressing Discrete Emotions Differentially Predicts Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Men and Women.

BACKGROUND: Expressing emotions effectively is central to social functioning and has links to health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Previous work has linked the ability to smile to lower CVD risk in men but has not studied other expressions or considered the context of these skills. PURPOSE: To test whether the ability to express fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and disgust cross-sectionally predict CVD risk in both genders and whether links are moderated by the ability to decode others' emotional signals. METHODS: A community sample of 125 men and women (30-75 years) provided trait emotion data before a laboratory visit where blood was drawn and performance-based assessments of the ability to signal and decode emotions were administered. Expressive accuracy was scored using FaceReader software. Projected CVD risk was calculated using Framingham, a New Zealand (NZ) specific, and Atherosclerosis CVD (ASCVD) risk algorithms. RESULTS: Accuracy expressing happiness predicted lower projected risk, whereas greater accuracy expressing fear and sadness predicted higher risk. Gender frequently moderated these links; greater accuracy expressing happiness predicted lower risk in men but not women. Conversely, greater accuracy expressing fear predicted higher risk in men, whereas greater accuracy expressing sadness predicted lower risk in women but, again, higher risk in men. The ability to accurately decode others' emotions moderated some links. CONCLUSIONS: The ability to signal emotion has complex links to health parameters. The ability to flexibly regulate expressions in accordance with gender norms may be one useful way of thinking about adaptive expressive regulation.

Spatial differences in genetic diversity and northward migration suggest genetic erosion along the boreal caribou southern range limit and continued range retraction.

With increasing human activities and associated landscape changes, distributions of terrestrial mammals become fragmented. These changes in distribution are often associated with reduced population sizes and loss of genetic connectivity and diversity (i.e., genetic erosion) which may further diminish a species' ability to respond to changing environmental conditions and lead to local population extinctions. We studied threatened boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) populations across their distribution in Ontario/Manitoba (Canada) to assess changes in genetic diversity and connectivity in areas of high and low anthropogenic activity. Using data from >1,000 caribou and nine microsatellite loci, we assessed population genetic structure, genetic diversity, and recent migration rates using a combination of network and population genetic analyses. We used Bayesian clustering analyses to identify population genetic structure and explored spatial and temporal variation in those patterns by assembling networks based on R ST and F ST as historical and contemporary genetic edge distances, respectively. The Bayesian clustering analyses identified broad-scale patterns of genetic structure and closely aligned with the R ST network. The F ST network revealed substantial contemporary genetic differentiation, particularly in areas presenting contemporary anthropogenic disturbances and habitat fragmentation. In general, relatively lower genetic diversity and greater genetic differentiation were detected along the southern range limit, differing from areas in the northern parts of the distribution. Moreover, estimation of migration rates suggested a northward movement of animals away from the southern range limit. The patterns of genetic erosion revealed in our study suggest ongoing range retraction of boreal caribou in central Canada.

Visual analogue mood scale scores in healthy young versus older adults.

ABSTRACTBackground:The current research sought to characterize current mood state profiles in healthy young versus older adults using 100-point visual analogue mood scales (VAMS), provide within-sample and new sample replication of age-group differences, assess sex differences, and compare with commonly used standardized symptom measures. METHODS: In two studies, six word-only VAMS (happy, sad, calm, tense, energetic, and sleepy) were administered in a laboratory setting. In Study 1, 22 young and 29 older males completed the VAMS six times (twice per day at weekly intervals). In Study 2, 60 young (30 males) and 60 older (30 males) adults completed on one occasion the VAMS, Beck Depression Inventory-II, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. RESULTS: VAMS scores showed that older adults had a tendency to indicate feeling happier, less sad, calmer, less tense, more energetic, and less sleepy than young adults. This pattern occurred across assessment points and irrespective of sex, except for the tense VAMS, which showed higher scores in females than males in young but not older adults. The standardized measures showed significant age-group differences for Trait Anxiety only (lower in older than young adults). CONCLUSIONS: These findings establish current mood state differences in young versus older adults. The absence of age-group differences in past studies may relate to the limited precision of the scales (only 7 points, in contrast to the 100-point scales used here).

Corrigendum: The Role of Personality Traits in Young Adult Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00119.].

The Role of Personality Traits in Young Adult Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

This project investigated how individual differences in the big-five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) predicted plant-food consumption in young adults. A total of 1073 participants from two samples of young adults aged 17-25 reported their daily servings of fruits, vegetables, and two unhealthy foods for comparison purposes using an Internet daily diary for 21 or 13 days (micro-longitudinal, correlational design). Participants also completed the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) measure of personality, and demographic covariates including gender, age, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI). Analyses used hierarchical regression to predict average daily fruit and vegetable consumption as separate dependent variables from the demographic covariates (step 1) and the five personality traits (step 2). Results showed that young adults higher in openness and extraversion, and to some extent conscientiousness, ate more fruits and vegetables than their less open, less extraverted, and less conscientious peers. Neuroticism and agreeableness were unrelated to fruit and vegetable consumption. These associations were unique to eating fruit and vegetables and mostly did not extend to unhealthy foods tested. Young adult women also ate more fruit and vegetables than young adult men. Results suggest that traits associated with greater intellect, curiosity, and social engagement (openness and extraversion), and to a lesser extent, discipline (conscientiousness) are associated with greater plant-food consumption in this population. Findings reinforce the importance of personality in establishing healthy dietary habits in young adulthood that could translate into better health outcomes later in life.

Range-wide distribution of genetic diversity in the North American tree Juglans cinerea: a product of range shifts, not ecological marginality or recent population decline.

The spatial distribution of genetic diversity is a product of recent and historical ecological processes, as well as anthropogenic activities. A current challenge in population and conservation genetics is to disentangle the relative effects of these processes, as a first step in predicting population response to future environmental change. In this investigation, we compare the influence of contemporary population decline, contemporary ecological marginality and postglacial range shifts. Using classical model comparison procedures and Bayesian methods, we have identified postglacial range shift as the clear determinant of genetic diversity, differentiation and bottlenecks in 29 populations of butternut, Juglans cinerea L., a North American outcrossing forest tree. Although butternut has experienced dramatic 20th century decline because of an introduced fungal pathogen, our analysis indicates that recent population decline has had less genetic impact than postglacial recolonization history. Location within the range edge vs. the range core also failed to account for the observed patterns of diversity and differentiation. Our results suggest that the genetic impact of large-scale recent population losses in forest trees should be considered in the light of Pleistocene-era large-scale range shifts that may have had long-term genetic consequences. The data also suggest that the population dynamics and life history of wind-pollinated forest trees may provide a buffer against steep population declines of short duration, a result having important implications for habitat management efforts, ex situ conservation sampling and population viability analysis.