How do the morphological and physiological traits of organisms determine their responses to climate change? Which traits are more likely to evolve? To address these questions this project will integrate lab and field experiments with mathematical models for two species of Colias butterflies in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. How temperature affects larval feeding, development, and heat tolerance will be measured and these results will be compared to historical lab data (30-50 years) to detect evolutionary changes. This project will also compare adult morphological traits and heat tolerance to historical data and museum specimens (>100 years). To examine how traits influence performance, reciprocal transplant of larvae and adults across sites at different elevations will be conducted. These data will be used to develop models that predict how traits determine survival and reproduction in changing climate conditions. To predict the impact of future environmental change on Colias model simulations with and without trait evolution will be applied.
The research will train undergraduate and graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary environmental change research. The project will continue initiatives for undergraduates to report current evolutionary research via articles and podcasts and to train high school teachers in global change ecology. We will apply our models to Colias in Rocky Mountain National Park and publically disseminate our predictions of possible climate change impacts.
