Spatial sorting promotes rapid (mal)adaptation in the red-shouldered soapberry bug after hurricane-driven local extinctions

Predicting future evolutionary change is a critical challenge in the
Anthropocene as geographic range shifts and local extinction emerge as
hallmarks of planetary change. Hence, spatial sorting – a driver of rapid
evolution in which dispersal-associated traits accumulate along expanding
range edges and within recolonized habitats – might be of growing
importance in ecology and conservation. We report on the results of a
natural experiment that monitored re-colonization of host plants by the
seed-feeding, red-shouldered soapberry bug, Jadera haematoloma, after
local extinctions from catastrophic flooding in an extreme hurricane. We
tested the contribution of spatial sorting to generate rapid and
persistent evolution in dispersal traits, as well as in feeding traits
unrelated to dispersal. Long-winged dispersal forms accumulated in
re-colonized habitats, and due to genetic correlation, mouthparts also
became longer, and this shift persisted across generations. Those longer
mouthparts were likely adaptive on one host plant species but maladaptive
on two others based on matching the optimum depth of seeds within their
host fruits. Moreover, spatial sorting eroded recently evolved adaptive
divergence in mouthpart length among all host-associated biotypes, an
outcome pointing to profound practical consequences of the extreme weather
event for local adaptation, population resilience, and evolutionary
futures.