Adapting to Habitat Changes

Problem

Can we predict the impact on wildlife populations experiencing quickly changing environmental conditions?

• The capacity of a species to adapt rapidly is key to its persistence, but linking changes in ecology to the evolution of traits in nature can be difficult without natural replication of the conditions studied.

Findings

Researchers studied the threespine stickleback fish in Iceland's geologically young freshwater lakes. Their exceptional capacity to invade freshwater habitats provided a unique opportunity to compare their reactions with marine fish, which represented an ancestral state for the organism.

• The researchers reported that fish from spring-fed lakes—especially from the highlands where they likely were more diverged from marine fish than lowland fish—reacted fastest to mechano-visual cues and were generally most active. Highland glacial fish showed strong responses to olfactory cues and the greatest plasticity in response to light levels.

Impact

This innovative study takes an important step toward a more global understanding of the complexity and repeatability of behavioral change in novel environments, advancing ecologists' and conservationists' ability to better predict the impact of habitat change on biodiversity at large.

Research Credit

Team

• Murielle Ålund, Brooke Harper, Sigurlaug Kjærnested, Julian E. Ohl, John Phillips, Jessica Sattler, Jared Thompson, Javier E. Varg, Sven Wargenau, Janette W. Boughman, Jason Keagy

Participating Department

• Ecosystem Science and Management

Partners

• Uppsala University, Sweden
• Hólar University College, Iceland
• University of Iceland
• Michigan State University

Competitive Funding

• NSF (Dimensions of Biodiversity)
• NSF (Science and Technology Center)
• Fulbright Arctic Initiative
• Swiss National Science Foundation
• Liljewalchs resestipendium
• Stiftelsen för Zoologisk Forskning

Federal and State Appropriations

• USDA NIFA Hatch Project PEN04768, Accession #1026660

Emerging Discoveries

Novel study of small fish in Icelandic waters sheds new light on adaptive change

April 25, 2022

Innovative research showing that populations of a small fish that live in both Iceland’s lakes and marine waters, respond more quickly and differently to predators after they invade freshwater lakes, demonstrating how some animals can adapt rapidly to changes in their environments and may be able to adapt to climate change.

Published Research

Sensory environment affects Icelandic threespine stickleback's anti-predator escape behaviour.

• Ålund, M., Harper, B., Kjærnested, S., Ohl, J. E., Phillips, J. G., Sattler, J., Thompson, J., Varg, J. E., Wargenau, S., Boughman, J. W., & Keagy, J. (2022). Sensory environment affects Icelandic threespine stickleback's anti-predator escape behaviour. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289(1972), [20220044]. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0044