COS 24-6 - Patterns in Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) community structure across elevation in neotropical Mexico

Monday, August 15, 2022

4:45 PM – 5:00 PM EDT

Location: 513C

Presenting Author(s)

SD

Sarah J. Dolson

University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON, Canada

Coauthor(s)

RA

Robert Anderson

Professor
1) Department of Biology, City College of New York 2) Biology Department, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States
HK

Heather Kharouba

University of Ottawa, Canada

Background/Question/Methods

Tropical montane ecosystems are currently experiencing drastic environmental changes due to climate change. Cold and moist high elevation habitats in the neotropics are particularly at risk due to the increased temperature and drying that are predicted with climate change. Therefore, understanding key indicators of ecosystem structure and how they relate to temperature gradients can provide insight into how biological communities may be lost or altered. Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) are one of the largest groups of animals and play critical roles as herbivores, prey and pollinators in many ecosystems. Weevils are also economically relevant organisms as they are used as bioindicators and for pest management. To date, this important group of beetles are underrepresented in studies in the neotropics and especially across elevation gradients, and thus the patterns of their geographic distributions are poorly understood. Here, we use over 15,000 weevil specimens collected from across mountainous neotropical Mexico to ask: How does alpha and beta weevil species diversity change across elevation?

Results/Conclusions

We identified 554 unique morphospecies that were collected from 100-2600 meters above sea level across 10 elevational sites in Mexico. We found that morphological based delineation of species (morphospecies) richness and abundance both increased with elevation. We also found that there was high species dissimilarity between sites (high beta diversity), and that this dissimilarity increased with geographic distance. This suggests that the high beta diversity we found may result from low dispersal rather than high endemism. Our results imply that neotropical areas most at risk from climate change may also contain species more vulnerable to extinction. Therefore, future climatic changes at upper elevations could mean the extirpation of weevils from these areas, with potential implications for ecosystem structure and function.