Biology subjects

Cheng, B. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Cheng, B. S..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

A mosaic of climate vulnerability: local warming rates meet intraspecific divergence in heat tolerance

Climate warming is increasing mismatches between thermal phenotypes and habitat temperatures, driving range shifts and population extirpations. While within-species variation in heat tolerance and local warming rates can predict responses to climate warming, how these factors shape differences in vulnerability among taxa and ecosystems is uncertain. Here we combine climate and thermal trait data from 69 species across four ecosystem types to examine the effects of incorporating intraspecific variation in heat tolerance and local warming rates on projected vulnerability to climate warming. Because vulnerability to warming depends on existing phenotypic variation in thermal performance and relative rates of habitat warming, we develop a new metric that integrates localized rates of warming with spatial variation in thermal tolerances, termed the minimum trait velocity. Incorporating intraspecific variation in heat tolerance lowered estimates of warming tolerance (a measure of vulnerability) across most ecosystem types, with the strongest negative impact on marine taxa. Although intraspecific variation in heat tolerance could facilitate adaptation to climate change, our results suggest such variation is generally less than the projected near future warming. This suggests that opportunities for evolutionary rescue via gene flow between locally adapted populations are limited, adding to mounting concern as the climate warms.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Spatial sorting and accelerated larval development in a range expanding fiddler crab

Although climate change has driven the widespread occurrence of species range shifts, the ecological and evolutionary processes that generate these patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate spatial sorting and countergradient selection as evolutionary mechanisms contributing to range expansion. We focus on the rapid range expansion of a fiddler crab (Minuca pugnax) in the Gulf of Maine, an ocean warming hotspot. We use common garden experiments to quantify change in pelagic larval duration (PLD), a key determinant of dispersal ability, across edge and interior core populations, and between timepoints separated by 19 years. Consistent with spatial sorting, larvae from poleward, edge populations had shorter PLDs relative to equatorward, core populations, which is more dispersive in this system because it is characterized by equatorward flows. Compared to 19 years prior, PLDs were significantly shorter, consistent with genetic change over time. Analysis of sea surface temperatures reveal that the larval development window in the edge populations has doubled over the past twenty years, suggesting the combined influence of ocean warming, trait differentiation over time, and spatial sorting in promoting range expansion. While spatial sorting is known to aid in terrestrial range expansions, our results are the first to suggest that this process might be important in the coastal oceans.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Adaptation to warm environments with a fast pace of life in a marine predatory snail

Understanding how latitudinal temperature variation shapes local adaptation of life history strategies is crucial for predicting future responses to warming. Contrasting predictive frameworks explain how growth and other life history traits may respond to differing selective pressures across latitude. However, these frameworks have rarely been explored within the context of fluctuating environmental temperatures across longer (i.e., seasonal) time scales experienced in nature. Furthermore, consequences of growth differences for other aspects of fitness, including reproductive output, remain unclear. Here, we conducted a long-term (17-month) simulated reciprocal transplant experiment to examine local adaptation in two populations of the predatory marine snail Urosalpinx cinerea separated by 8.6{degrees} latitude (1000 km). We reared F1 offspring under two seasonally fluctuating temperature regimes ("warm" and "cold", simulating field thermal conditions experienced by low and high latitude populations, respectively), quantifying temporal patterns in growth, maturation, and reproductive output. We identified striking divergence in life-history strategies between populations in the warm regime, with offspring from the low latitude population achieving greater growth in their first year, and high reproductive output coupled with reduced growth in their second year. In contrast, the high latitude population grew slower in their first year, but eventually attained larger sizes in their second year, at the expense of reduced reproductive output. Responses were consistent with this in the cold regime, although growth and reproductive output was reduced in both populations. Our data provides support for adaptive divergence across latitude consistent with the Pace-of-Life hypothesis, with the low latitude population selected for a fast-paced life characterized by rapid development and early reproduction. In contrast, the high latitude population exhibited slower growth and delayed maturation. Our results highlight the potential limitations of short-term comparisons of growth without considering processes over longer time scales that may exhibit seasonal temperature variation and ontogenetic shifts in energy allocation and imply a radical reshaping of physiological performance and life history traits across populations under climate change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Fast and slow-paced reproductive life history across native and invasive populations of a predatory marine snail

Populations across a species range may be locally adapted, and failure to recognize this variation can lead to inaccurate predictions of their resilience or vulnerability to climate change. Because life history traits are directly linked to fitness, life history theory can serve as a useful framework for evaluating how populations within species may respond to rapid environmental change. However, relatively few studies quantify multiple life history traits and their tradeoffs across many populations, especially in marine taxa. Here, we used a 10-month laboratory experiment to quantify a suite of reproductive traits in populations spanning the strongest latitudinal temperature gradient in the worlds coastal oceans. We examined reproductive traits in wild-captured adults exposed to simulated local conditions for 7 native Atlantic and 4 introduced Pacific populations of the marine predatory gastropod Urosalpinx cinerea. Our data reveals that reproductive season length, the number of reproductive attempts, and annual fecundity unimodally peaked at mid-latitude populations, the species range-center. Introduced populations had comparably few spawning attempts and low fecundity despite a longer reproductive period in a less seasonal environment. We then conducted a second experiment quantifying thermal tolerance of developing embryos from 3 native populations, which revealed high sensitivity to temperature at early life stages but weak population differentiation. Taken together, our data reveal stark differences in reproduction that appear to reflect "fast" and "slow" paced lifestyles, which may maximize fitness by spreading the risk of reproductive failure over a single season or lifetime. Our results indicate that warm range-edge populations are highly vulnerable to warming, as low embryonic thermal tolerance may shorten the spawning season and warming is likely to reduce fecundity. This study highlights heterogeneity in life history traits across marine populations that may underlie differential vulnerability to climate warming. Open research statementAll data and code will be publicly available via Figshare and the NSF Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO).

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Severe introduced predator impacts despite attempted functional eradication

Established non-native species can have significant impacts on native biodiversity without any possibility of complete eradication. In such cases, one management approach is functional eradication, the reduction of introduced species density below levels that cause unacceptable effects on the native community. Functional eradication may be particularly effective for species with limited dispersal ability, which may limit rates of reinvasion from distant populations. Here, we evaluate the potential for functional eradication of introduced predatory oyster drills (Urosalpinx cinerea) using a community science approach in San Francisco Bay. We combined observational surveys, targeted removals, and a caging experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in mitigating the mortality of prey Olympia oysters (Ostrea lurida), a conservation and restoration priority species. Despite the efforts of over 300 volunteers that removed over 30,000 oyster drills, we report limited success and discuss several possible mechanisms for this result with broad relevance to management for this and other introduced species. We also found a strong negative relationship between oyster drills and oysters, showing virtually no coexistence across eight sites. At two removal sites, there was no effect of oyster drill removal on oyster survival, which was only observed by caging treatment (0 and 1.6% survival in open and partial cage treatments, as compared to 89.1% in predator exclusion treatments). We conclude that functional eradication of this species requires significantly greater effort and may not be a viable management strategy. Oyster restoration efforts should not be undertaken where Urosalpinx is established or is likely to invade.

ecology↗