Data from: Evolvability meets biogeography: evolutionary potential decreases at high and low environmental favourability

Understanding and forecasting the effects of environmental change on wild populations requires knowledge on a critical question: Do populations have the ability to evolve in response to that change? However, our knowledge on how evolution works in wild conditions under different environmental circumstances is extremely limited. We investigated how environmental variation influences the evolutionary potential of phenotypic traits. We used published data to collect or calculate 135 estimatesof evolvability of morphological traits of European wild bird populations. We characterised the environmental favourability of each population throughout the species’ breeding distribution. Our results suggest thatthe evolutionary potential of morphological traits decreases as environmental favourability becomes high or low. Strong environmental selection pressures and high intra-specific competition may reduce species’ evolutionary potential in low and high favourability areas, respectively. This suggests that species may be least able to adapt to new climate conditions at their range margins and at the centre. Our results underscore the need to consider the evolutionary potential of populations when studying the drivers of species distributions, particularly when predicting the effects of environmental change. We discuss the utility of integrating evolutionary dynamics into a biogeographical perspective to understand how environmental variation shapes evolutionary patterns. This approach would also produce more reliable predictions about the effect of environmental change on population persistence and therefore on biodiversity.要理解并预测环境变化对野生种群的影响，需先解答一个核心问题：种群是否具备应对环境变化的演化能力？然而，目前我们对不同环境条件下野外自然演化过程的认知仍极为有限。本研究探究了环境变异如何影响表型性状（phenotypic traits）的演化潜力。我们利用已发表的数据，收集并计算了欧洲野生鸟类种群形态性状（morphological traits）的135份可演化性评估值。针对各物种繁殖分布范围内的每个种群，我们表征了其环境适宜度（environmental favourability）。研究结果显示，形态性状的演化潜力会随环境适宜度的升高或降低而下降。高强度的环境选择压力与种内竞争，分别会在低适宜度与高适宜度区域内降低物种的演化潜力。这表明，物种在分布范围边缘与核心区域内，或许最难以适应新的气候条件。本研究结果强调，在探究物种分布的驱动因素时，尤其是在预测环境变化的影响时，需充分考虑种群的演化潜力。我们探讨了将演化动力学（evolutionary dynamics）纳入生物地理学视角的应用价值，以厘清环境变异如何塑造演化模式。该方法还可针对环境变化对种群存续乃至生物多样性的影响，生成更为可靠的预测结果。