Ryan P. Kovach Leslie A. Jones Robert K. Al-Chokhachy Matthew C. Boyer Robb F. Leary Winsor H. Lowe Gordon Luikart Fred W. Allendorf Clint C. Muhlfeld 2014 <p><span>Climate change will decrease worldwide biodiversity through a number of potential pathways</span>^{<a id="ref-link-section-d51451e527" title="Parmesan, C. Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 37, 637–669 (2006)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR1" data-track="click" data-track-action="reference anchor" data-track-label="link" data-test="citation-ref" aria-label="Reference 1" data-mce-href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR1">1</a>}<span>, including invasive hybridization</span>^{<a id="ref-link-section-d51451e531" title="Hoffmann, A. A. &amp; Sgro, C. M. Climate change and evolutionary adaptation. Nature 470, 479–485 (2011)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR2" data-track="click" data-track-action="reference anchor" data-track-label="link" data-test="citation-ref" aria-label="Reference 2" data-mce-href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR2">2</a>}<span>&nbsp;(cross-breeding between invasive and native species). How climate warming influences the spread of hybridization and loss of native genomes poses difficult ecological and evolutionary questions with little empirical information to guide conservation management decisions</span>^{<a id="ref-link-section-d51451e535" title="Moritz, C. &amp; Agudo, R. The future of species under climate change: Resilience or decline? Science 341, 504–508 (2013)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR3" data-track="click" data-track-action="reference anchor" data-track-label="link" data-test="citation-ref" aria-label="Reference 3" data-mce-href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR3">3</a>}<span>. Here we combine long-term genetic monitoring data with high-resolution climate and stream temperature predictions to evaluate how recent climate warming has influenced the spatio-temporal spread of human-mediated hybridization between threatened native westslope cutthroat trout (</span><i>Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi</i><span>) and non-native rainbow trout (</span><i>Oncorhynchus mykiss</i><span>), the world’s most widely introduced invasive fish</span>^{<a id="ref-link-section-d51451e546" title="Halverson, A. An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World (Yale Univ. Press, 2010)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR4" data-track="click" data-track-action="reference anchor" data-track-label="link" data-test="citation-ref" aria-label="Reference 4" data-mce-href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR4">4</a>}<span>. Despite widespread release of millions of rainbow trout over the past century within the Flathead River system</span>^{<a id="ref-link-section-d51451e550" title="Hitt, N. P., Frissell, C. A., Muhlfeld, C. C. &amp; Allendorf, F. W. Spread of hybridization between native westslope cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, and nonnative rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 60, 1440–1451 (2003)." href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR5" data-track="click" data-track-action="reference anchor" data-track-label="link" data-test="citation-ref" aria-label="Reference 5" data-mce-href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2252#ref-CR5">5</a>}<span>, a large relatively pristine watershed in western North America, historical samples revealed that hybridization was prevalent only in one (source) population. During a subsequent 30-year period of accelerated warming, hybridization spread rapidly and was strongly linked to interactions between climatic drivers—precipitation and temperature—and distance to the source population. Specifically, decreases in spring precipitation and increases in summer stream temperature probably promoted upstream expansion of hybridization throughout the system. This study shows that rapid climate warming can exacerbate interactions between native and non-native species through invasive hybridization, which could spell genomic extinction for many&nbsp;species.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1038/nclimate2252 en Nature Publishing Group Invasive hybridization in a threatened species is accelerated by climate change article