Résumé
Dispersal of organisms generates gene flow between populations. Identifying factors that influence dispersal will help predict how species will cope with rapid environmental change. We developed an innovative infrastructure, the Metatron, composed of 48 interconnected patches, designed for the study of terrestrial organism movement as a model for dispersal. Corridors between patches can be flexibly open or closed. Temperature, humidity and illuminance can be independently controlled within each patch. The modularity and adaptability of the Metatron provide the opportunity for robust experimental design for the study of 'meta-systems'. We describe a pilot experiment on populations of the butterfly Pieris brassicae and the lizard Zootoca vivipara in the Metatron. Both species survived and showed both disperser and resident phenotypes. The Metatron offers the opportunity to test theoretical models in spatial ecology.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Delphine Legrand , Olivier Guillaume , Michel Baguette , Julien Cote , Audrey Trochet , Olivier Calvez , Susanne Zajitschek , Felix Zajitschek , Jane Lecomte , Quentin Bénard , Jean-François Le Galliard , Jean Clobert
Publication : Nature Methods
Date : 2012
Volume : 9
Issue : 8
Pages : 828-833
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreAuteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Nick M. Haddad , Robert D. Holt , Robert J., Jr. Fletcher , Michel Loreau , Jean Clobert
Publication : ECOGRAPHY
Date : 2017
Volume : 40
Issue : 1
Pages : 1-8
Catégorie(s)
#ANR-Citation #CNRS #Metatron terrestreAuteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs E. Bestion , J. Cote
Date : 2025
Pages : 139-147
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
The interplay between morphological (structures) and behavioral (acts) signals in contest assessment is still poorly understood. During contests, males of the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) display both morphological (i.e. static color patches) and behavioral (i.e. raised-body display, foot shakes) traits. We set out to evaluate the role of these putative signals in determining the outcome and intensity of contests by recording agonistic behavior in ten mesocosm enclosures. We find that contests are typically won by males with relatively more black coloration, which are also more aggressive. However, black coloration does not seem to play a role in rival assessment, and behavioral traits are stronger predictors of contest outcome and winner aggression than prior experience, morphology, and coloration. Contest intensity is mainly driven by resource- and self-assessment, with males probably using behavioral threat (raised-body displays) and de-escalation signals (foot shakes) to communicate their willingness to engage/persist in a fight. Our results agree with the view that agonistic signals used during contests are not associated with mutual evaluation of developmentally-fixed attributes, and instead animals monitor each other to ensure that their motivation is matched by their rival. We emphasize the importance of testing the effect of signals on receiver behavior and discuss that social recognition in territorial species may select receivers to neglect potential morphological signals conveying static information on sex, age, or intrinsic quality.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Javier Abalos , Guillem Pérez i de Lanuza , Alicia Bartolomé , Océane Liehrmann , Fabien Aubret , Enrique Font
Publication : Behavioral Ecology
Date : 2024
Volume : 35
Issue : 4
Pages : arae045
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
Dispersal, i.e. movements potentially leading to gene flow, is central in evolutionary ecology. Many factors can trigger dispersal, all linked to the social and/or the environmental context. Moreover, it is now widely demonstrated that phenotypes with contrasted dispersal abilities coexist within populations of a same species. The current challenge is to elucidate how social and environmental factors will influence the dispersal decision of individuals with distinct phenotypes. We have used the Metatron, a unique experimental mesocosm dedicated to the study of dispersal within fragmented landscapes, to analyze the relative and interactive roles played by ten potential dispersal triggers in experimental two-patch metapopulations of butterflies. We demonstrate in our model species that some factors (flight performance and wing length) have direct effects on emigration decision, others act only through interactive effects (sex ratio), while a third class of factors presents both direct and interactive effects (weather conditions, habitat quality and sex). We also show that disperser and resident individuals have distinct behavioral and morphological attributes, revealing the existence of a dispersal syndrome. Finally, our results also suggest that the environmental context, and especially weather conditions and habitat quality, prevails over social factors and individual phenotypes in butterflies' decision to disperse. Our approach is applicable to many species facing medium to strong environmental fluctuations, and constitutes a new way to master the idiosyncrasy of the dispersal process. Our framework should also help prioritize the factors responsible for populations' spatial distribution, which is obviously crucial in the current era of global changes.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Delphine Legrand , Audrey Trochet , Sylvain Moulherat , Olivier Calvez , Virginie M. Stevens , Simon Ducatez , Jean Clobert , Michel Baguette
Publication : Ecography
Date : 2025
Volume : 38
Issue : 8
Pages : 822-831
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
* Sex-biased dispersal, that is, the difference in dispersal between males and females, is thought to be the consequence of any divergent evolutionary responses between sexes. In anisogamous species, asymmetry in parental investment may lead to sexual conflict, which entails male–male competition (for sexual partner access), female–female competition (for feeding or egg-laying habitat patches) and/or male–female competition (antagonistic co-evolution). * As competition is one of the main causes of dispersal evolution, intra- and intersexual competition should have strong consequences on sex-biased dispersal. However, very few experimental studies, if any, have simultaneously addressed the effect of biased sex ratio on (i) each dispersal stage (emigration, transience, immigration), (ii) the dispersal phenotype and (iii) the colonization success of new habitat in order to fully separate the effects of varying male and female density. * Here, we used the Metatron, a unique experimental system composed of 48 interconnected enclosed patches dedicated to the study of dispersal in meta-ecosystems, to investigate the effect of sex ratio on dispersal in a butterfly. We created six populations with three different sex ratios in pairs of patches and recorded individual movements in these simple metapopulations. * Emigration was higher when the proportion of males was higher, and individuals reached the empty patch at a higher rate when the sex ratio in the departure patch was balanced. Males had a better dispersal success than females, which had a lower survival rate during dispersal and after colonization. We also showed that sex and wing size are major components of the dispersal response. * We did not observe sex-biased dispersal; our results thus suggest that female harassment by males and male–male competition might be more important mechanisms for the dispersal of females and males, than the search for a mating partner. Furthermore, the demonstration of a differential mortality between males and females during dispersal provides causal hypotheses of the evolution of sex-biased dispersal.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Audrey Trochet , Delphine Legrand , Nicolas Larranaga , Simon Ducatez , Olivier Calvez , Julien Cote , Jean Clobert , Michel Baguette
Publication : Journal of Animal Ecology
Date : 2025
Volume : 82
Issue : 5
Pages : 946-955
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
Facing warming environments, species can exhibit plastic or microevolutionary changes in their thermal physiology to adapt to novel climates. Here, using semi-natural mesocosms, we experimentally investigated over two successive years whether a 2°C-warmer climate produces selective and inter- and intragenerational plastic changes in the thermal traits (preferred temperature and dorsal coloration) of the lizard Zootoca vivipara. In a warmer climate, the dorsal darkness, dorsal contrast, and preferred temperature of adults plastically decreased and covariances between these traits were disrupted. While selection gradients were overall weak, selection gradients for darkness were slightly different between climates and in the opposite direction to plastic changes. Contrary to adults, male juveniles were darker in warmer climates either through plasticity or selection and this effect was strengthened by intergenerational plasticity when juveniles’ mothers also experienced warmer climates. While the plastic changes in adult thermal traits alleviate the immediate overheating costs of warming, its opposite direction to selective gradients and to juveniles’ phenotypic responses may slow down evolutionary shifts toward phenotypes that are better adapted to future climates. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering inter- and intragenerational plasticity along with selective processes to better understand adaptation and population dynamics in light of climate change.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Elvire Bestion , Luis M San-Jose , Lucie Di Gesu , Murielle Richard , Barry Sinervo , Jessica Côte , Olivier Calvez , Olivier Guillaume , Julien Cote
Publication : Evolution
Date : 2023
Volume : 77
Issue : 7
Pages : 1634-1646
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
Explaining the evolutionary origin and maintenance of color polymorphisms is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Such polymorphisms are commonly thought to reflect the existence of alternative behavioral or life-history strategies under negative frequency-dependent selection. The European common wall lizard Podarcis muralis exhibits a striking ventral color polymorphism that has been intensely studied and is often assumed to reflect alternative reproductive strategies, similar to the iconic “rock–paper–scissors” system described in the North American lizard Uta stansburiana. However, available studies so far have ignored central aspects in the behavioral ecology of this species that are crucial to assess the existence of alternative reproductive strategies. Here, we try to fill this gap by studying the social behavior, space use, and reproductive performance of lizards showing different color morphs, both in a free-ranging population from the eastern Pyrenees and in ten experimental mesocosm enclosures. In the natural population, we found no differences between morphs in site fidelity, space use, or male–female spatial overlap. Likewise, color morph was irrelevant to sociosexual behavior, space use, and reproductive success within experimental enclosures. Our results contradict the commonly held hypothesis that P. muralis morphs reflect alternative behavioral strategies, and suggest that we should instead turn our attention to alternative functional explanations.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Javier Abalos , Guillem Pérez i de Lanuza , Alicia Bartolomé , Océane Liehrmann , Hanna Laakkonen , Fabien Aubret , Tobias Uller , Pau Carazo , Enrique Font
Publication : Ecology and Evolution
Date : 2025
Volume : 10
Issue : 20
Pages : 10986-11005
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreAuteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs L. M. San Jose
Date : 1970
Catégorie(s)
#CNRS #Metatron terrestreRésumé
When, how often and for how long organisms mate can have strong consequences for individual fitness and are crucial aspects of evolutionary ecology. Such determinants are likely to be of even greater importance in monandrous species and species with short adult life stages. Previous work suggests that mobility, a key dispersalrelated trait, may affect the dynamics of copulations, but few studies have investigated the impact of individual mobility on mating latency, copulation duration and oviposition latency simultaneously. In this paper, we monitored the copulation dynamics of 40 males and 40 females, as well as the oviposition dynamics of the females of the Large White butterfly Pieris brassicae, a facultative long-distance disperser butterfly. Individuals from a breeding were selected to create a uniform distribution of mobility and we recorded the timing, number and duration of all copulations in a semiexperimental system. We showed that mobility, measured as the time spent in flight under stressful conditions (a proxy of dispersal tendency), correlates with all aspects of copulation dynamics: mobile males and females mated earlier and for shorter periods than less mobile individuals. In turn, late mating females increased the time between copulation and oviposition. These results feed the previously described mobility syndrome of P. brassicae, involving morphological and physiological characters, with life-history traits. We suggest that the reduction of mating latency and copulation duration has an adaptive value in dispersing individuals, as their life expectancy might be shorter than that of sedentary individuals.
Auteurs, date et publication :
Auteurs Nicolas Larranaga , Michel Baguette , Olivier Calvez , Delphine Legrand
Publication : Insect Science
Date : 2018