Phenological mismatch affects individual fitness and population growth in the winter moth

Climate change can severely impact species that depend on temporary resources by inducing phenological mismatches between consumer and resource seasonal timing. In the winter moth, warmer winters caused eggs to hatch before their food source, young oak leaves, became available. This phenological mismatch changed the selection on the temperature sensitivity of egg development rate. However, we know little about the fine-scale fitness consequences of phenological mismatch at the individual level and how this mismatch affects population dynamics in the winter moth. To determine the fitness consequences of mistimed egg hatching relative to timing of oak budburst, we quantified survival and pupation weight in a feeding experiment. We found that mismatch greatly increased mortality rates of freshly hatched caterpillars, as well as affecting caterpillar growth and development time. We then investigated whether these individual fitness consequences have population-level impacts by estimating the effect of phenological mismatch on population dynamics, using our long-term data (1994-2021) on relative winter moth population densities at four locations in The Netherlands. We found a significant effect of mismatch on population density with higher population growth rates in years with a smaller phenological mismatch. Our results indicate that climate change-induced phenological mismatch can incur severe individual fitness consequences that can impact population density in the wild.</p

Timing manipulations reveal the lack of a causal link across timing of annual-cycle stages in a long-distance migrant

Organisms need to time their annual-cycle stages, like breeding and migration, to occur at the right time of the year. Climate change has shifted the timing of annual-cycle stages at different rates, thereby tightening or lifting time constraints of these annual-cycle stages, a rarely studied consequence of climate change. The degree to which these constraints are affected by climate change depends on whether consecutive stages are causally linked (scenario I) or whether the timing of each stage is independent of other stages (scenario II). Under scenario I, a change in timing in one stage has knock-on timing effects on subsequent stages, whereas under scenario II, a shift in the timing of one stage affects the degree of overlap with previous and subsequent stages. To test this, we combined field manipulations, captivity measurements and geolocation data. We advanced and delayed hatching dates in pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) and measured how the timing of subsequent stages (male moult and migration) were affected. There was no causal effect of manipulated hatching dates on the onset of moult and departure to Africa. Thus, advancing hatching dates reduced the male moult–breeding overlap with no effect on the moult–migration interval. Interestingly, the wintering location of delayed males was more westwards, suggesting that delaying the termination of breeding carries over to winter location. Because we found no causal linkage of the timing of annual-cycle stages, climate change could shift these stages at different rates, with the risk that the time available for some becomes so short that this will have major fitness consequences

Fine-tuning of seasonal timing of breeding is regulated downstream in the underlying neuro-endocrine system in a small songbird

The timing of breeding is under selection in wild populations as a result of climate change, and understanding the underlying physiological processes mediating this timing provides insight into the potential rate of adaptation. Current knowledge on this variation in physiology is, however, mostly limited to males. We assessed whether individual differences in the timing of breeding in females are reflected in differences in candidate gene expression and, if so, whether these differences occur in the upstream (hypothalamus) or downstream (ovary and liver) parts of the neuroendocrine system. We used 72 female great tits from two generations of lines artificially selected for early and late egg laying, which were housed in climate-controlled aviaries and went through two breeding cycles within 1 year. In the first breeding season we obtained individual egg-laying dates, while in the second breeding season, using the same individuals, we sampled several tissues at three time points based on the timing of the first breeding attempt. For each tissue, mRNA expression levels were measured using qPCR for a set of candidate genes associated with the timing of reproduction and subsequently analysed for differences between generations, time points and individual timing of breeding. We found differences in gene expression between generations in all tissues, with the most pronounced differences in the hypothalamus. Differences between time points, and early- and late-laying females, were found exclusively in the ovary and liver. Altogether, we show that fine-tuning of the seasonal timing of breeding, and thereby the opportunity for adaptation in the neuroendocrine system, is regulated mostly downstream in the neuro-endocrine system.Peer reviewe

A multiscale model for self-assembly with secondary nucleation-like properties

Most of the biological polymers that make up our cells and tissues are hierarchically structured. For biopolymers ranging from collagen, to actin, to fibrin, this hierarchy provides vitally important versatility, allowing a multitude of structurally and functionally distinct structures to be constructed from a limited set of biomolecular constituents. This structural hierarchy must be encoded in the self-assembly process, from the earliest stages onward, in order to produce the appropriate substructures in the correct sequence. In this Letter, we explore the kinetics of such multi-stage self-assembly processes in a model system which is formulated as a set of discrete master equations capturing the underlying hierarchical molecular-scale process, but which may be homogenized to yield a practical, continuum description in terms of PDEs to compare to bulk experiments such as light scattering or turbidity measurements. We present the general framework, and apply it to recent turbidimetry data on the self-assembly of collagen fibrils. Furthermore, our analysis suggests a connection between diffusion-limited aggregation kinetics and fibril growth, supported by slow, power-law growth at very long timescales observed in both systems

Active flux schemes on moving meshes with applications to geometric optics

Active flux schemes are finite volume schemes that keep track of both point values and averages. The point values are updated using a semi-Lagrangian step, making active flux schemes highly suitable for geometric optics problems on phase space, i.e., to solve Liouville's equation. We use a semi-discrete version of the active flux scheme. Curved optics lead to moving boundaries in phase space. Therefore, we introduce a novel way of defining the active flux scheme on moving meshes. We show, using scaling arguments as well as numerical experiments, that our scheme outperforms the current industry standard, ray tracing. It has higher accuracy as well as a more favourable time scaling. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the active flux scheme is orders of magnitude more accurate and faster than ray tracing

Appendix B. The method used for extracting daily feeding times from studies on avian and mammalian herbivores.

The method used for extracting daily feeding times from studies on avian and mammalian herbivores

Embedded WENO : a design method to improve existing WENO schemes

Embedded WENO methods utilize all adjacent smooth substencils to construct a desirable interpolation. Conventional WENO schemes underuse this possibility close to large gradients or discontinuities. Embedded methods based on the WENO schemes of Jiang and Shu [1] and on the WENO-Z scheme of Borges et al. [2] are explicitly constructed. Several possible choices are presented that result in either better spectral properties or a higher order of convergence. The embedded methods are demonstrated to be improvements over their standard counterparts by several numerical examples. All the embedded methods presented have virtually no added computational effort compared to their standard counterparts. Keywords: Essentially non-oscillatory, WENO, high-resolution scheme, hyperbolic conservation laws, nonlinear interpolation, spectral analysis

Active flux schemes on moving meshes with applications to geometric optics

Active flux schemes are finite volume schemes that keep track of both point values and averages. The point values are updated using a semi-Lagrangian step, making active flux schemes highly suitable for geometric optics problems on phase space, i.e., to solve Liouville's equation. We use a semi-discrete version of the active flux scheme. Curved optics lead to moving boundaries in phase space. Therefore, we introduce a novel way of defining the active flux scheme on moving meshes. We show, using scaling arguments as well as numerical experiments, that our scheme outperforms the current industry standard, ray tracing. It has higher accuracy as well as a more favourable time scaling. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the active flux scheme is orders of magnitude more accurate and faster than ray tracing

Appendix A. The method used for extracting functional response parameters from studies on avian herbivores.

The method used for extracting functional response parameters from studies on avian herbivores