TY - JOUR T1 - Limits to adaptation along environmental gradients JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/012690 SP - 012690 AU - Jitka Polechová AU - Nick Barton Y1 - 2014/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/12/13/012690.abstract N2 - Why do species not adapt to ever-wider ranges of conditions, gradually expanding their ecological niche? Theories of niche evolution typically omit spatial context, yet all species experience spatially variable conditions. Gene flow across environments has two conflicting effects on adaptation: while it increases genetic variation, which is a prerequisite for adaptation, gene flow may swamp adaptation to local conditions. We show that genetic drift can generate a sharp margin to a species’ range, by reducing genetic variance below the level needed for adaptation to spatially variable conditions. Dimensional arguments and separation of ecological and evolutionary time scales reveal a simple threshold that predicts when adaptation at the range margin fails. Two observable parameters describe the threshold: i) the effective environmental gradient, which can be measured by the loss of fitness due to dispersal to a different environment, and ii) the efficacy of selection relative to genetic drift. The theory predicts sharp range margins even in the absence of abrupt changes in the environment. Furthermore, it implies that gradual worsening of conditions across a species’ habitat may suddenly lead to range fragmentation – as adaptation to a wide span of conditions within a single species becomes impossible. ER -