Thursday, December 5th 2024 the Science Morning of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences took place, to showcase and celebrate cutting-edge research conducted at the faculty. Nadja Verspagen was presented with the young researchers' award for Outstanding Journal Article of 2023. The awarded article was part of her PhD dissertation conducted with the Life-History Evolution research group and completed earlier this year. In her study, Nadja investigated an important life-history trade-off, namely the relationship between body size and development time, and how it depends on temperature and the environment of origin. She found clear differences in temperature response between caterpillars from different regions: while northern larvae prioritized faster development at lower temperatures, southern larvae prioritized a larger body size. These findings thus show that different populations of the same species can respond to temperature in different ways, highlighting the need to assess risk under climate change below the species level.
Find out more about the study:
Verspagen, N., Ikonen, S., Maes, D., Stefanescu, C., DiLeo, M. F., & Saastamoinen, M. (2023). Thermal plasticity in development and diapause strategy in a temperate butterfly across a latitudinal gradient. Functional Ecology, 00, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14446