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 estimates of evolvability
of morphological traits of European wild bird populations. We
characterized the environmental favourability of each population
throughout the species' breeding distribution. Our results suggest
that the 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：种群是否具备响应环境变化的演化能力？
然而，当前学界对不同环境条件下野生种群的演化机制的认知仍极为匮乏。
为此，本研究聚焦于环境变异如何影响表型性状（phenotypic traits）的演化潜力。我们利用公开数据集，收集并计算了欧洲野生鸟类种群形态性状（morphological traits）的135项可演化性（evolvability）评估值。
我们针对各物种繁殖分布范围内的所有种群，表征了其所处生境的环境适宜性（environmental favourability）水平。
研究结果显示，当环境适宜性过高或过低时，形态性状的演化潜力均会下降。
高强度的环境选择压力与种内竞争，分别会在低适宜性与高适宜性区域削弱物种的演化潜力。
这表明，物种在分布范围边缘与核心区域或许最难以适应新的气候条件。
本研究结果凸显出，在探究物种分布的驱动因素时，尤其是开展环境变化影响预测研究时，需充分考量种群的演化潜力。
我们还探讨了将演化动力学（evolutionary dynamics）纳入生物地理学（biogeographical）视角的应用价值，以此阐明环境变异如何塑造演化格局。
该研究范式也能为环境变化对种群存续乃至生物多样性的影响提供更为可靠的预测结果。