Experimental warming increases the vulnerability of high-elevation plant populations to a specialist herbivore

Ongoing climate change may impact alpine plant populations via both direct effects of increased temperature and climate-driven changes in interactions between plants and other organisms, such as insect herbivores. Rates of herbivory in high-elevation environments are predicted to increase with warmer temperatures, which may also lead to changes in morphological and physiological traits that influence plant resistance. Yet, we currently know little about how temperature-mediated changes in traits will impact alpine plant vulnerability to herbivores, as well as the extent to which populations from high-elevation environments might need to rapidly adapt to increasing herbivore pressure with rising temperatures.
We assessed the effect of experimental warming on the relative vulnerability of populations of the alpine plant Arabis alpina from different elevations to a specialist herbivore. Herbivore performance was measured on plants from nine populations grown in climate chambers at two tem...