Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175 Campus CNRS Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Evol Appl. 2014 Jan;7(1):15-28. doi: 10.1111/eva.12126. Epub 2013 Nov 12.
There are multiple observations around the globe showing that in many avian species, both the timing of migration and breeding have advanced, due to warmer springs. Here, we review the literature to disentangle the actions of evolutionary changes in response to selection induced by climate change versus changes due to individual plasticity, that is, the capacity of an individual to adjust its phenology to environmental variables. Within the abundant literature on climate change effects on bird phenology, only a small fraction of studies are based on individual data, yet individual data are required to quantify the relative importance of plastic versus evolutionary responses. While plasticity seems common and often adaptive, no study so far has provided direct evidence for an evolutionary response of bird phenology to current climate change. This assessment leads us to notice the alarming lack of tests for microevolutionary changes in bird phenology in response to climate change, in contrast with the abundant claims on this issue. In short, at present we cannot draw reliable conclusions on the processes underlying the observed patterns of advanced phenology in birds. Rapid improvements in techniques for gathering and analysing individual data offer exciting possibilities that should encourage research activity to fill this knowledge gap.
全球范围内有多项观察表明，由于春季变暖，许多鸟类物种的迁徙和繁殖时间都提前了。在这里，我们回顾了文献，以区分气候变化引起的选择导致的进化变化与个体可塑性变化（即个体调整其物候以适应环境变量的能力）的作用。在大量关于气候变化对鸟类物候影响的文献中，只有一小部分研究基于个体数据，但要量化可塑性与进化反应的相对重要性，需要个体数据。虽然可塑性似乎很常见，而且通常是适应性的，但到目前为止，还没有研究提供鸟类物候对当前气候变化的进化反应的直接证据。这一评估使我们注意到，与大量关于这个问题的说法相比，目前鸟类物候对气候变化的微进化变化的测试明显缺乏。收集和分析个体数据技术的快速改进提供了令人兴奋的可能性，这应该鼓励研究活动来填补这一知识空白。
