Climate change-driven elevational changes among boreal nocturnal moths

Climate change has shifted geographical ranges of species northwards or to higher altitudes on elevational gradients. These changes have been associated with increases in ambient temperatures. For ectotherms in seasonal environments, however, life history theory relies largely on the length of summer, which varies somewhat independently of ambient temperature per se. Extension of summer reduces seasonal time constraints and enables species to establish in new areas as a result of over-wintering stage reaching in due time. The reduction of time constraints is also predicted to prolong organisms’ breeding season when reproductive potential is under selection. We studied temporal change in the summer length and its effect on species’ performance by combining long-term data on the occurrence and abundance of nocturnal moths with weather conditions in a boreal location at Värriötunturi fell in NE Finland. We found that summers have lengthened on average 5 days per decade from the late 1970s, profoundly due to increasing delays in the onset of winters. Moth abundance increased with increasing season length a year before. Most of the species occurrences expanded upwards in elevation. Moth communities in low elevation pine heath forest and middle elevation mountain birch forest have become inseparable. Yet, the flight periods have remained unchanged, probably due to unpredictable variation in proximate conditions (weather) that hinders life histories from selection. We conclude that climate change-driven changes in the season length have potential to affect species’ ranges and affect the structure of insect assemblages, which may contribute to alteration of ecosystem-level processes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00442-020-04632-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.