Tamiasciurus Hudsonicus)
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THERMAL ADAPTATION IN THE AMERICAN RED SQUIRREL (TAMIASCIURUS HUDSONICUS) A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Fríða Jóhannesdóttir January 2017 © 2017 Fríða Jóhannesdóttir THERMAL ADAPTATION IN THE AMERICAN RED SQUIRREL (TAMIASCIURUS HUDSONICUS) Fríða Jóhannesdóttir, Ph.D. Cornell University 2017 Temperature is one of the most important environmental variables impacting organisms. For endotherms, temperature can be extremely testing since they need to maintain a constant core body temperature at any given ambient temperature. However, endotherms can survive both in very hot areas and very cold areas and mammals are, for example, found throughout the world and widespread species may face temperature differences of more than 80C over their distribution range. Recent changes in climate are likely to have great impact on thermoregulatory abilities and with increased regional temperatures due to anthropogenic climate change more and more species are being pushed to, or beyond their thermal limits in parts of their distribution, making an understanding of adaptation to temperature particularly important. The following series of studies examine multiple aspects of thermal adaptation in the American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). The first chapter asks if the distribution of the species is limited by temperature. Indeed, three of the major predictors of the species distribution reflect temperature, i.e. mean annual temperature, minimum temperature of the coldest month and maximum temperature of the warmest month. Knowing the importance of climate in determining the species niche helps us understand the selective pressures it asserts. The second and third chapters discuss adaptations found in the morphology of T.hudsonicus that relate to temperature. Both whole body and skull dimensions vary with temperature, with smaller animals being found in colder areas, either as a response to reduction of heat loss in cold conditions or i increased heat loss in hot conditions. This is consistent with Bergmann’s Rule, but with regards Allen’s Rule, only one protuberance or appendage – the nose - was found to show an adaptive trend and that shows a relationship with humidity rather than temperature. The fourth chapter examines variation in gene expression levels in response to temperature and elevation. The gene expression responses suggest that T.hudsonicus has a decreased metabolic activity in cold conditions compared to warm (or alternatively increased metabolic activity in warm conditions) and shows greater metabolic responses to increased elevation than to temperature. Overall T.hudsonicus is found to live within limits determined by temperature and shows both morphological and gene expression response to temperature. ii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Fríða Jóhannesdóttir was born in Iceland late July during Iceland’s one week of summer. She lived close to the Arctic Circle in Akureyri until moving to the capital city, Reykjavík, to study Biology at the University of Iceland. This decision was made based on her interest in genetics following the cloning of Dolly the sheep and the founding of DeCode. Thankfully Professor Páll Hersteinsson showed her the light and turned her in the direction of mammal ecology prompting her to move to Scotland to finish her BSc degree at the University of Aberdeen. Following her time in Scotland Fríða took a year off from science and worked with children with special needs before deciding that the University system might have more need for her skill than the pre- schools. She therefore moved again to the UK to complete a Masters in Ecology and Environmental Management at the University of York. It was during that time she learnt that not all genetic studies have to involve Drosophila but can focus on crucial issues such as looking at the evolutionary ecology of small mammals. With that in mind she joined the lab of Jeremy Searle which led her to Cornell to do a PhD with him there. At Cornell Fríða was determined to understand how a widespread mammal can deal with a wide temperature range, a question close to her heart due to her inability to thermoregulate. After a false start on a European species she sat down with a mammal guide looking for a species that would have appropriate distribution and ecology to answer the question and chose the cutest one, the American red squirrel. Fríða thesis work took her to the corners of the species distribution, allowing her to visit 36 states in the US and 8 provinces of Canada during her stay in North America. iii This thesis is dedicated to Yorkshire tea. Without it, all of this would never have happened. May it continue supporting me through science for a long time to come. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to specially thank my advisor Jeremy B. Searle for his unwavering support and patience over the years. I would also like to thank my committee, Kelly Zamudio, the late Rick Harrison and Monica Geber for picking up where Rick sadly left off. I would like to thank Jacob Höglund and Paulo Celio Alves for supporting me during my time in their respective labs in Sweden and Portugal in my last year. Various members of the Searle lab have been instrumental in this work, especially Jacob Tyrell who supported me during four field seasons and collected around half of all the field samples. My undergraduate students Brian Magnier, Brian O’Toole, Cassandra Ramirez and Camille Mangiaratti all impressed me with their hard work and determination in and out of the field and all contributed beyond words to this thesis. Additionally, Margherita Collini, Beatriz Oliva, Nick Fletcher, Rodrigo Vega and Michelle Alexander provided invaluable help in the field. Finally, Tom White and Heidi Eager provided both intellectual and emotional support that can never be repaid. I would have been unable to complete this work without help from a large number of people both at museums and field location. I am first of all grateful to Charles Dardia (Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates) who has been immensely supportive throughout my time in Ithaca helping with specimen preparation, and helping me and my field assistants get certification for collecting. Charles was also supportive during my time as a lab instructor for the Mammalogy course. Additionally, Eileen Westwig (American Museum of Natural History), William Stanley and Rebecca Banasiak (Field Museum of Natural History) and Suzanne Peurach (National Museum of Natural History) provided invaluable assistance while obtaining museum v data. I would also like to thank Burton Lim & Jacqueline Miller (Royal Ontario Museum), Nikole Castleberry (Georgia Museum of Natural History), Samantha Delserra (Bell Museum), Suzanne McLaren (Carnegie Museum of Natural History), Ray Poulin (Royal Saskatchewan Museum), Cindy Opitz (Univeresity of Iowa Museum of Natural History), Kamal Khidas (Canadian Museum of Nature), Virginie Millien & Anthony Wayne Howell (Redpath Museum), Timothy Gaudin (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Museum), Donald McAlpine (New Brunswick Museum) & Duke Rogers (Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum) for specimen data. I am thankful for the help of Frank Maus, Rob Hoelscher, Jon Morton, Jeff Gross, Jeff Wells and many, many others including private land owners and National Forest staff in various states for help with finding field sites and allowing me to work there. Many thanks to Jeff Glaubitz, Qi Sun and Minghui Wang for help with bioinformatics and Erika Mudrak for help with statistics. I am additionally extremely grateful to Andrew McAdam for introducing me to the red squirrel and showing me the ropes and to Helga Óskarsdóttir for spending a part of her US holiday helping me collect data at the National Museum of Natural History. Financial support for this work came from various sources. Stipend support came from the Andrew and Margaret Paul Fellowship in the Life Sciences, Olin Graduate Fellowship and through teaching. Research support came from the Heredity Fieldwork grant (Genetics Society), the Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research, the Betty Miller ’47 Francis Fund, the Sigma Xi Grants in Aid of Research, the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund, the Kieckhefer Adirondack Fellowship, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Student Research Fund, the Cornell Graduate School Research Travel Grant, and the Cornell Sigma Xi Research Grant. vi I would like to thank my family in Iceland and friends, who became a family away from home in Ithaca. I would especially like to thank Amos, Denise, Nancy, Indrani, Monica, Gui, Ana, Alberto and David for many happy memories and for listening to rants and providing a support during hard times. Finally, I would like to thank the American red squirrels, a living proof that something small, common and seemingly insignificant can be the source of wonder, amazement and enthusiasm beyond words. Who needs megafauna when we have small mammals! vii TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS viii LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES x CHAPTER 1 The thermal niche of the American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) 1 CHAPTER 2 Adaptive geographic variation in external morphology in the American red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus 18 SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 2 45 CHAPTER 3 Range-wide variation in skull morphometry in the American red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus 63 SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 3 88 CHAPTER 4 Gene expression responses of the American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) to temperature and elevation 106 SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 4 130 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Locations of specimens used in the study 6 Figure 1.2 Climatic species distribution model of T.hudsonicus for North America 9 Figure 1.3 Full species distribution model of T.hudsonicus for North America 9 Figure 1.4 Importance of each variable for the full species distribution model 10 Figure 1.5 Response curves of the best supported climatic predictors 10 Figure 2.1 Collection locations for all specimens analyzed in the chapter 25 Figure 2.2 Criteria used to classify T.hudsonicus specimens into age classes.