Climate change and anthropogenic disturbances significantly influence the distribution of ectotherms. With the increasing global temperature and urbanization, there are possibilities of rapid shift in geographic abundance and/or local extinction of species. In this study, we report increase in local abundance of Drosophila repleta, a warm adapted species never reported until 2003 from higher altitude in Western Himalayas, from lower altitude to mid-high-altitude localities due to recent rapid urbanization and global warming. Comparison of life-history traits at two different temperatures (17°C and 25°C) showed significant reduction in trait values at 17°C; indicating lower evolutionary ability for adaptation to colder and drier habitats. When we compared performance of life-history traits on different food resources (lab media vs mix media), a significant increase in fecundity, viability, and percent of adult emergence was observed in flies grown on mix media. This indicates that the ability to change in oviposition preference and flexibility in utilization of food resources helped this species to survive in the new habitats. With expected increase in global temperature and urbanization in near future D. repleta will become more abundant in urban environments and may pose health risk due to its ability to transfer disease causing organisms.
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