Contemporary climate-driven range shifts: putting evolution back on the table

As the climate continues to change, species are moving to track their historical niches. Although we are gaining a clearer picture of where and how quickly species ranges are moving, a mechanistic understanding of these changes is still nascent. Evolutionary changes in ranges and range-limiting traits over contemporary timescales has received relatively little attention, possibly due to the mismatch in scale between rapid contemporary range shifts and the historical evolution of species ranges over millions of years. But recent experimental work has shown that range-limiting traits can evolve rapidly over decadal timescales, effectively putting evolution back on the table towards the goal of a mechanistic understanding of contemporary range shifts. Here I review the role of evolution in shaping range shift responses to recent climate change from the perspective of the past (shared evolutionary history, or phylogenetic signal in range shifts and range-limiting traits), present (variation...