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De Camargo RX. Avian Diversity Responds Unimodally to Natural Landcover: Implications for Conservation Management. Animals (Basel) 2023; 13:2647. [PMID: 37627438 PMCID: PMC10451700 DOI: 10.3390/ani13162647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2023] [Revised: 08/11/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 08/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Predicting species' ecological responses to landcovers within landscapes could guide conservation practices. Current modelling efforts derived from classic species-area relationships almost always predict richness monotonically increasing as the proportion of landcovers increases. Yet evidence to explain hump-shaped richness-landcover patterns is lacking. We tested predictions related to hypothesised drivers of peaked relationships between richness and proportion of natural landcover. We estimated richness from breeding bird atlases at different spatial scales (25 to 900 km2) in New York State and Southern Ontario. We modelled richness to gradients of natural landcover, temperature, and landcover heterogeneity. We controlled models for sampling effort and regional size of the species pool. Species richness peaks as a function of the proportion of natural landcover consistently across spatial scales and geographic regions sharing similar biogeographic characteristics. Temperature plays a role, but peaked relationships are not entirely due to climate-landcover collinearities. Heterogeneity weakly explains richness variance in the models. Increased amounts of natural landcover promote species richness to a limit in landscapes with relatively little (<30%) natural cover. Higher amounts of natural cover and a certain amount of human-modified landcovers can provide habitats for species that prefer open habitats. Much of the variation in richness among landscapes must be related to variables other than natural versus human-dominated landcovers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rafael X. De Camargo
- Laboratoire Chrono-Environnement, UMR-CNRS 6249, Université Franche-Comté—UFC, 25030 Besançon, France;
- TRANSBIO Graduate School, Université Bourgogne Franche Comté—COMUE UBFC, 25000 Besançon, France
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2
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Velasco JA, Pinto-Ledezma JN. Mapping species diversification metrics in macroecology: Prospects and challenges. Front Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.951271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The intersection of macroecology and macroevolution is one of today’s most active research in biology. In the last decade, we have witnessed a steady increment of macroecological studies that use metrics attempting to capture macroevolutionary processes to explain present-day biodiversity patterns. Evolutionary explanations of current species richness gradients are fundamental for understanding how diversity accumulates in a region. Although multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the patterns we observe in nature, it is well-known that the present-day diversity patterns result from speciation, extinction, colonization from nearby areas, or a combination of these macroevolutionary processes. Whether these metrics capture macroevolutionary processes across space is unknown. Some tip-rate metrics calculated directly from a phylogenetic tree (e.g., mean root distance -MRD-; mean diversification rate -mDR-) seem to return very similar geographical patterns regardless of how they are estimated (e.g., using branch lengths explicitly or not). Model-based tip-rate metrics —those estimated using macroevolutionary mixtures, e.g., the BAMM approach— seem to provide better net diversification estimates than only speciation rates. We argue that the lack of appropriate estimates of extinction and dispersal rates in phylogenetic trees may strongly limit our inferences about how species richness gradients have emerged at spatial and temporal scales. Here, we present a literature review about this topic and empirical comparisons between select taxa with several of these metrics. We implemented a simple null model approach to evaluate whether mapping of these metrics deviates from a random sampling process. We show that phylogenetic metrics by themselves are relatively poor at capturing speciation, extinction, and dispersal processes across geographical gradients. Furthermore, we provide evidence of how parametric biogeographic methods can improve our inference of past events and, therefore, our conclusions about the evolutionary processes driving biodiversity patterns. We recommend that further studies include several approaches simultaneously (e.g., spatial diversification modeling, parametric biogeographic methods, simulations) to disentangle the relative role of speciation, extinction, and dispersal in the generation and maintenance of species richness gradients at regional and global scales.
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Li L, Xu X, Qian H, Huang X, Liu P, Landis JB, Fu Q, Sun L, Wang H, Sun H, Deng T. Elevational patterns of phylogenetic structure of angiosperms in a biodiversity hotspot in eastern Himalaya. DIVERS DISTRIB 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/ddi.13513] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Lijuan Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture Wuhan Botanical Garden Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan China
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing China
| | - Xiaoting Xu
- Key Laboratory of Bio‐Resource and Eco‐Environment of Ministry of Education College of Life Sciences Sichuan University Chengdu China
| | - Hong Qian
- Research and Collections Center Illinois State Museum Springfield Illinois USA
| | - Xianhan Huang
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
| | - Pengju Liu
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
| | - Jacob B Landis
- School of Integrative Plant Science Section of Plant Biology and the L.H. Bailey Hortorium Cornell University Ithaca New York USA
- BTI Computational Biology Center Boyce Thompson Institute Ithaca New York USA
| | - Quansheng Fu
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
| | - Lu Sun
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
| | - Hengchang Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture Wuhan Botanical Garden Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan China
| | - Hang Sun
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
| | - Tao Deng
- CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming China
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4
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Cai T, Quan Q, Song G, Wu Y, Wen Z, Zhang C, Qu Y, Qiao G, Lei F. Ecological and evolutionary constraints on regional avifauna of passerines in China. Curr Zool 2021; 67:431-440. [PMID: 34616940 PMCID: PMC8489014 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoaa075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2020] [Accepted: 12/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Strong correlations between species diversity and climate have been widely observed, but the mechanism underlying this relationship is unclear. Here, we explored the causes of the richness-climate relationships among passerine birds in China by integrating tropical conservatism and diversification rate hypotheses using path models. We found that assemblages with higher species richness southwest of the Salween-Mekong-Pearl River Divide are phylogenetically overdispersed and have shorter mean root distances (MRDs), while species-rich regions northeast of this divide (e.g., north Hengduan Mountains-south Qinling Mountains) are phylogenetically clustered and have longer MRDs. The results of the path analyses showed that the direct effect of climatic factors on species richness was stronger than their indirect effects on species richness via phylogenetic relatedness, indicating that neither tropical conservatism nor diversification rate hypotheses can well explain the richness-climate relationship among passerines in China. However, when path analyses were conducted within subregions separately, we found that the tropical conservatism hypothesis was well supported in the southwestern Salween-Mekong-Pearl River Divide, while the diversification rate hypothesis could explain the richness-climate relationship well in the northeastern divide. We conclude that the diversity patterns of passerines in different subregions of the Eastern Himalayas-Mountains of Southwest China may be shaped by different evolutionary processes related to geological and climatic histories, which explains why the tropical conservatism or diversification rate hypothesis alone cannot fully explain the richness-climate relationships.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianlong Cai
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Qing Quan
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Institute of Zoology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510260, China
| | - Gang Song
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Yongjie Wu
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Key Laboratory of Bio-resources and Eco-environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
| | - Zhixin Wen
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Chunlan Zhang
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Institute of Zoology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510260, China
| | - Yanhua Qu
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Gexia Qiao
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Fumin Lei
- Key Laboratory of the Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China
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Qian H, Jin Y. Are phylogenies resolved at the genus level appropriate for studies on phylogenetic structure of species assemblages? PLANT DIVERSITY 2021; 43:255-263. [PMID: 34485767 PMCID: PMC8390917 DOI: 10.1016/j.pld.2020.11.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2020] [Revised: 11/09/2020] [Accepted: 11/09/2020] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Phylogenies are essential to studies investigating the effect of evolutionary history on assembly of species in ecological communities and geographical and ecological patterns of phylogenetic structure of species assemblages. Because phylogenies well resolved at the species level are lacking for many major groups of organisms such as vascular plants, researchers often generate a species-level phylogenies using a phylogeny well resolved at the genus level as a backbone and attaching species to their respective genera in the phylogeny as polytomies or by using a megaphylogeny well resolved at the genus level as a backbone and adding additional species to the megaphylogeny as polytomies of their respective genera. However, whether the result of a study using species-level phylogenies generated in these ways is robust, compared to that based on phylogenies fully resolved at the species level, has not been assessed. Here, we use 1093 angiosperm tree assemblages (each in a 110 × 110 km quadrat) in North America as a model system to address this question, by examining six commonly used metrics of phylogenetic structure (phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic relatedness) and six climate variables commonly used in ecology. Our results showed that (1) the scores of phylogenetic metrics derived from species-level phylogenies resolved at the genus level with species being attached to their respective genera as polytomies are very strongly or perfectly correlated to those derived from a phylogeny fully resolved at the species level (the mean of correlation coefficients is 0.973), and (2) the relationships between the scores of phylogenetic metrics and climate variables are consistent between the two sets of analyses based on the two types of phylogeny. Our study suggests that using species-level phylogenies resolved at the genus level with species being attached to their genera as polytomies is appropriate in studies exploring patterns of phylogenetic structure of species in ecological communities across geographical and ecological gradients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hong Qian
- Research and Collections Center, Illinois State Museum, 1011 East Ash Street, Springfield, IL, 62703, USA
| | - Yi Jin
- Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Biodiversity Conservation in Karst Mountainous Areas of Southwestern China, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550025, China
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6
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Gheyret G, Guo Y, Fang J, Tang Z. Latitudinal and elevational patterns of phylogenetic structure in forest communities in China's mountains. SCIENCE CHINA. LIFE SCIENCES 2020; 63:1895-1904. [PMID: 32382981 DOI: 10.1007/s11427-019-1663-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2020] [Accepted: 03/23/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The phylogenetic structure incorporates both ecological and evolutionary processes to explain assembly of a local community. The "phylogenetic niche conservatism" (PNC) hypothesis suggests that distributions of species along environmental gradients reflect both ancestral traits and ecological fitness of individual species The temperature is generally regarded to change in similar ways along both latitudinal and elevational gradients but with different historical contingence. Therefore, comparing the latitudinal and elevational patterns of phylogenetic structure of communities is of help to depict the effects of ecological and evolutionary processes in shaping the community assembly. In this study, we explored the latitudinal, elevational and climatic patterns of phylogenetic structure of 569 angiosperm tree communities from 38 mountains across China. We found a larger mean abundance-weighted net relatedness index (NRI) than the presence/absence-based NRI; and the NRI decreased when the species pool downscaled from the full pool to county-level pool. The mean family age and phylogenetic species evenness decreased with latitude, and increased with temperature of the coldest month and precipitation; whilst NRI increased with latitude, and decreased with mean temperature of the coldest month. In most mountains, NRI, mean family age and phylogenetic species evenness showed non-significant trends along the elevational gradient. Our results support the main predictions of PNC for the latitudinal gradient, i.e., species tend to be more phylogenetically related to each other and clades are younger in temperate environments, compared to those in tropical environments. We suggested that independent species pools and abundance should be incorporated in analysis to fully represent the phylogenetic structure of communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gheyur Gheyret
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Yanpei Guo
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Jingyun Fang
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
| | - Zhiyao Tang
- Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
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7
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Gutiérrez Illán J, Bloom EH, Wohleb CH, Wenninger EJ, Rondon SI, Jensen AS, Snyder WE, Crowder DW. Landscape structure and climate drive population dynamics of an insect vector within intensely managed agroecosystems. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2020; 30:e02109. [PMID: 32108396 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/27/2019] [Accepted: 01/24/2020] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Characterizing factors affecting insect pest populations across variable landscapes is a major challenge for agriculture. In natural ecosystems, insect populations are strongly mediated by landscape and climatic factors. However, it has proven difficult to evaluate if similar factors predict pest dynamics in agroecosystems because control tactics exert strong confounding effects. We addressed this by assessing whether species distribution models could effectively characterize dynamics of an insect pest in intensely managed agroecosystems. Our study used a regional multi-year data set to assess landscape and climatic drivers of potato psyllid (Bactericera cockerelli) populations, which are often subjected to calendar-based insecticide treatments because they transmit pathogens to crops. Despite this, we show that psyllid populations were strongly affected by landscape and climatic factors. Psyllids were more abundant in landscapes with high connectivity, low crop diversity, and large natural areas. Psyllid population dynamics were also mediated by climatic factors, particularly precipitation and humidity. Our results show that many of the same factors that drive insect population dynamics in natural ecosystems can have similar effects in an intensive agroecosystem. More broadly, our study shows that models incorporating landscape and climatic factors can describe pest populations in agroecosystems and may thus promote more sustainable pest management.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elias H Bloom
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, 99164, USA
| | - Carrie H Wohleb
- Washington State University Extension, Ephrata, Washington, 99823, USA
| | - Erik J Wenninger
- Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology, and Nematology, University of Idaho, Kimberly, Idaho, 83844, USA
| | - Silvia I Rondon
- Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Hermiston, Oregon, 97838, USA
| | - Andrew S Jensen
- Northwest Potato Research Consortium, Lakeview, Oregon, 97630, USA
| | - William E Snyder
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, 99164, USA
| | - David W Crowder
- Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, 99164, USA
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Campos FS, Lourenço-De-Moraes R, Rudoy A, Rödder D, Llorente GA, Solé M. Ecological trait evolution in amphibian phylogenetic relationships. ETHOL ECOL EVOL 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/03949370.2019.1630012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Felipe S. Campos
- Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona 08028, Spain
- NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa 1070-312, Portugal
| | - Ricardo Lourenço-De-Moraes
- Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Maringá 87020-900, Brazil
| | - Andrey Rudoy
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF), Barcelona 08003, Spain
| | - Dennis Rödder
- Herpetology Section, Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig (ZFMK), Bonn 53113, Germany
| | - Gustavo A. Llorente
- Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona 08028, Spain
| | - Mirco Solé
- Herpetology Section, Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig (ZFMK), Bonn 53113, Germany
- Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus 45662-000, Brazil
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Keil P, Chase JM. Global patterns and drivers of tree diversity integrated across a continuum of spatial grains. Nat Ecol Evol 2019; 3:390-399. [DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-0799-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2018] [Accepted: 01/07/2019] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
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Rao M, Steinbauer MJ, Xiang X, Zhang M, Mi X, Zhang J, Ma K, Svenning J. Environmental and evolutionary drivers of diversity patterns in the tea family (Theaceae s.s.) across China. Ecol Evol 2018; 8:11663-11676. [PMID: 30598765 PMCID: PMC6303774 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4619] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2017] [Revised: 08/27/2018] [Accepted: 09/07/2018] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Subtropical forest is recognized as an important global vegetation type with high levels of plant species richness. However, the mechanisms underlying its diversity remain poorly understood. Here, we assessed the roles of environmental drivers and evolutionary dynamics (time-for-speciation and diversification rate) in shaping species richness patterns across China for a major subtropical plant group, the tea family (Theaceae s.s.) (145 species), at several taxonomic scales. To this end, we assessed the relationships between species richness, key environmental variables (minimum temperature of the coldest month, mean annual precipitation, soil pH), and phylogenetic assemblage structure (net related index) by using non-spatial and spatial linear models. We found that species richness is significantly related to environmental variables, especially soil pH, which is negatively related to species richness both across the whole family and within the major tribe Theeae (116 species). Family-level species richness is unrelated to phylogenetic structure, whereas species richness in tribe Theeae was related to phylogenetic structure with U-shaped relationship, a more complex relation than predicted by the time-for-speciation or diversification rate hypotheses. Overall, these results suggest that both environmental and evolutionary factors play important roles in shaping species richness patterns within this subtropical plant family across China, with the latter mainly important at fine taxonomic scales. Most surprisingly, our findings show that soils can play a key role in shaping macro-scale diversity patterns, contrary to often-stated assumptions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mide Rao
- Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, College of Life SciencesBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of BotanyChinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Manuel J. Steinbauer
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of BioscienceAarhus UniversityAarhus CDenmark
| | - Xiaoguo Xiang
- State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of BotanyChinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | | | - Xiangcheng Mi
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of BotanyChinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Jintun Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, College of Life SciencesBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
| | - Keping Ma
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of BotanyChinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Jens‐Christian Svenning
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of BioscienceAarhus UniversityAarhus CDenmark
- Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE)Aarhus UniversityAarhus CDenmark
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11
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Spalink D, Kriebel R, Li P, Pace MC, Drew BT, Zaborsky JG, Rose J, Drummond CP, Feist MA, Alverson WS, Waller DM, Cameron KM, Givnish TJ, Sytsma KJ. Spatial phylogenetics reveals evolutionary constraints on the assembly of a large regional flora. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 2018; 105:1938-1950. [PMID: 30408151 DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.1191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2018] [Accepted: 08/20/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
PREMISE OF THE STUDY We used spatial phylogenetics to analyze the assembly of the Wisconsin flora, linking processes of dispersal and niche evolution to spatial patterns of floristic and phylogenetic diversity and testing whether phylogenetic niche conservatism can account for these patterns. METHODS We used digitized records and a new molecular phylogeny for 93% of vascular plants in Wisconsin to estimate spatial variation in species richness and phylogenetic α and β diversity in a native flora shaped mainly by postglacial dispersal and response to environmental gradients. We developed distribution models for all species and used these to infer fine-scale variation in potential diversity, phylogenetic distance, and interspecific range overlaps. We identified 11 bioregions based on floristic composition, mapped areas of neo- and paleo-endemism to establish new conservation priorities and predict how community-assembly patterns should shift with climatic change. KEY RESULTS Spatial phylogenetic turnover most strongly reflects differences in temperature and spatial distance. For all vascular plants, assemblages shift from phylogenetically clustered to overdispersed northward, contrary to most other studies. This pattern is lost for angiosperms alone, illustrating the importance of phylogenetic scale. CONCLUSIONS Species ranges and assemblage composition appear driven primarily by phylogenetic niche conservatism. Closely related species are ecologically similar and occupy similar territories. The average level and geographic structure of plant phylogenetic diversity within Wisconsin are expected to greatly decline over the next half century, while potential species richness will increase throughout the state. Our methods can be applied to allochthonous communities throughout the world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Spalink
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Texas A&M University, 2138 TAMU, College Station, Texas, 77843, USA
| | - Ricardo Kriebel
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Pan Li
- Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology for Endangered Wildlife of the Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
| | - Matthew C Pace
- New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx, New York, 10485
| | - Bryan T Drew
- Department of Biology, University of Nebraska-Kearney, 2401 11th Avenue, Kearney, Nebraska, 68849, USA
| | - John G Zaborsky
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Jeffrey Rose
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Chloe P Drummond
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Mary Ann Feist
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - William S Alverson
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Donald M Waller
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Kenneth M Cameron
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Thomas J Givnish
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
| | - Kenneth J Sytsma
- Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704, USA
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12
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Ferrer-Castán D, Morales-Barbero J, Vetaas OR. Water-energy dynamics, habitat heterogeneity, history, and broad-scale patterns of mammal diversity. ACTA OECOLOGICA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1016/j.actao.2016.10.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Abstract
We show that Streptomyces biogeography in soils across North America is influenced by the regional diversification of microorganisms due to dispersal limitation and genetic drift. Streptomyces spp. form desiccation-resistant spores, which can be dispersed on the wind, allowing for a strong test of whether dispersal limitation governs patterns of terrestrial microbial diversity. We employed an approach that has high sensitivity for determining the effects of genetic drift. Specifically, we examined the genetic diversity and phylogeography of physiologically similar Streptomyces strains isolated from geographically distributed yet ecologically similar habitats. We found that Streptomyces beta diversity scales with geographic distance and both beta diversity and phylogenetic diversity manifest in a latitudinal diversity gradient. This pattern of Streptomyces biogeography resembles patterns seen for diverse species of plants and animals, and we therefore evaluated these data in the context of ecological and evolutionary hypotheses proposed to explain latitudinal diversity gradients. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that niche conservatism limits dispersal, and historical patterns of glaciation have limited the time for speciation in higher-latitude sites. Most notably, higher-latitude sites have lower phylogenetic diversity, higher phylogenetic clustering, and evidence of range expansion from lower latitudes. In addition, patterns of beta diversity partition with respect to the glacial history of sites. Hence, the data support the hypothesis that extant patterns of Streptomyces biogeography have been driven by historical patterns of glaciation and are the result of demographic range expansion, dispersal limitation, and regional diversification due to drift. Biogeographic patterns provide insight into the evolutionary and ecological processes that govern biodiversity. However, the evolutionary and ecological processes that govern terrestrial microbial diversity remain poorly characterized. We evaluated the biogeography of the genus Streptomyces to show that the diversity of terrestrial bacteria is governed by many of the same processes that govern the diversity of many plant and animal species. While bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are a preeminent source of antibiotics, their evolutionary history, biogeography, and biodiversity remain poorly characterized. The observations we describe provide insight into the drivers of Streptomyces biodiversity and the processes that underlie microbial diversification in terrestrial habitats.
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14
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Feng G, Mi X, Eiserhardt WL, Jin G, Sang W, Lu Z, Wang X, Li X, Li B, Sun I, Ma K, Svenning JC. Assembly of forest communities across East Asia--insights from phylogenetic community structure and species pool scaling. Sci Rep 2015; 5:9337. [PMID: 25797420 PMCID: PMC4369734 DOI: 10.1038/srep09337] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2014] [Accepted: 02/19/2015] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Local communities are assembled from larger-scale species pools via dispersal, environmental filtering, biotic interactions, and local stochastic demographic processes. The relative importance, scaling and interplay of these assembly processes can be elucidated by comparing local communities to variously circumscribed species pools. Here we present the first study applying this approach to forest tree communities across East Asia, focusing on community phylogenetic structure and using data from a global network of tropical, subtropical and temperate forest plots. We found that Net Relatedness Index (NRI) and Nearest Taxon Index (NTI) values were generally lower with geographically broad species pools (global and Asian species pools) than with an East Asian species pool, except that global species pool produced higher NTI than the East Asian species pool. The lower NRI for the global relative to the East Asian species pool may indicate an important role of intercontinental migration during the Neogene and Quaternary and climatic conservatism in shaping the deeper phylogenetic structure of tree communities in East Asia. In contrast, higher NTI for the global relative to the East Asian species pool is consistent with recent localized diversification determining the shallow phylogenetic structure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gang Feng
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK-8000 Aarhus CDenmark
| | - Xiangcheng Mi
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
| | - Wolf L Eiserhardt
- 1] Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK-8000 Aarhus CDenmark [2] Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, TW9 3AB Richmond, Surrey, UK
| | - Guangze Jin
- Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin
| | - Weiguo Sang
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
| | - Zhijun Lu
- Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan
| | - Xihua Wang
- Tiantong National Field Observation Station for Forest Ecosystem, East China Normal University, Shanghai
| | - Xiankun Li
- Guangxi Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guilin
| | - Buhang Li
- State Key Lab of Biological Control and School of Life Sciences, Guangdong Key Lab of Plant Resources, SYSU-Alberta Joint Lab for Biodiversity Conservation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou
| | - Ifang Sun
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Hualein
| | - Keping Ma
- State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
| | - Jens-Christian Svenning
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, DK-8000 Aarhus CDenmark
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15
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Hurlbert AH, Stegen JC. On the processes generating latitudinal richness gradients: identifying diagnostic patterns and predictions. Front Genet 2014; 5:420. [PMID: 25520738 PMCID: PMC4251432 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2014.00420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2014] [Accepted: 11/16/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
We use a simulation model to examine four of the most common hypotheses for the latitudinal richness gradient and identify patterns that might be diagnostic of those four hypotheses. The hypotheses examined include (1) tropical niche conservatism, or the idea that the tropics are more diverse because a tropical clade origin has allowed more time for diversification in the tropics and has resulted in few species adapted to extra-tropical climates. (2) The ecological limits hypothesis suggests that species richness is limited by the amount of biologically available energy in a region. (3) The speciation rates hypothesis suggests that the latitudinal gradient arises from a gradient in speciation rates. (4) Finally, the tropical stability hypothesis argues that climatic fluctuations and glacial cycles in extratropical regions have led to greater extinction rates and less opportunity for specialization relative to the tropics. We found that tropical niche conservatism can be distinguished from the other three scenarios by phylogenies which are more balanced than expected, no relationship between mean root distance (MRD) and richness across regions, and a homogeneous rate of speciation across clades and through time. The energy gradient, speciation gradient, and disturbance gradient scenarios all produced phylogenies which were more imbalanced than expected, showed a negative relationship between MRD and richness, and diversity-dependence of speciation rate estimates through time. We found that the relationship between speciation rates and latitude could distinguish among these three scenarios, with no relation expected under the ecological limits hypothesis, a negative relationship expected under the speciation rates hypothesis, and a positive relationship expected under the tropical stability hypothesis. We emphasize the importance of considering multiple hypotheses and focusing on diagnostic predictions instead of predictions that are consistent with multiple hypotheses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allen H Hurlbert
- Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC, USA ; Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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16
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Silva RR, Brandão CRF. Ecosystem-wide morphological structure of leaf-litter ant communities along a tropical latitudinal gradient. PLoS One 2014; 9:e93049. [PMID: 24671213 PMCID: PMC3966852 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2013] [Accepted: 03/02/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
General principles that shape community structure can be described based on a functional trait approach grounded on predictive models; increased attention has been paid to factors accounting for the functional diversity of species assemblages and its association with species richness along environmental gradients. We analyze here the interaction between leaf-litter ant species richness, the local communities' morphological structure and fundamental niche within the context of a northeast-southeast latitudinal gradient in one of the world's most species-rich ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, representing 2,700 km of tropical rainforest along almost 20o of latitude in eastern Brazil. Our results are consistent with an ecosystem-wide pattern in communities' structure, with relatively high species turnover but functionally analogous leaf-litter ant communities' organization. Our results suggest directional shifts in the morphological space along the environmental gradient from overdispersed to aggregated (from North to South), suggesting that primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity (altitude, temperature and precipitation in the case) determine the distribution of traits and regulate the assembly rules, shaping local leaf-litter ant communities. Contrary to the expected and most common pattern along latitudinal gradients, the Atlantic Forest leaf litter ant communities show an inverse pattern in richness, that is, richer communities in higher than in lower latitudes. The morphological specialization of communities showed more morphologically distinct communities at low latitudes and species redundancy at high latitudes. We claim that an inverse latitudinal gradient in primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity across the Atlantic forest may affect morphological diversity and species richness, enhancing species coexistence mechanisms, and producing thus the observed patterns. We suggest that a functional framework based on flexible enough traits should be pursued to allow comparisons at local, regional and global levels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rogério R. Silva
- Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Coordenação de Ciências da Terra e Ecologia, Belém, PA, Brazil
- * E-mail:
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17
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Boucher-Lalonde V, Kerr JT, Currie DJ. Does climate limit species richness by limiting individual species' ranges? Proc Biol Sci 2014; 281:20132695. [PMID: 24352946 PMCID: PMC3871319 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2695] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2013] [Accepted: 11/25/2013] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Broad-scale geographical variation in species richness is strongly correlated with climate, yet the mechanisms underlying this correlation are still unclear. We test two broad classes of hypotheses to explain this pattern. Bottom-up hypotheses propose that the environment determines individual species' ranges. Ranges then sum up to yield species richness patterns. Top-down hypotheses propose that the environment limits the number of species that occur in a region, but not which ones. We test these two classes of hypotheses using a natural experiment: seasonal changes in environmental variables and seasonal range shifts of 625 migratory birds in the Americas. We show that richness seasonally tracks the environment. By contrast, individual species' geographical distributions do not. Rather, species occupy different sets of environmental conditions in two seasons. Our results are inconsistent with extant bottom-up hypotheses. Instead, a top-down mechanism appears to constrain the number of species that can occur in a given region.
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18
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Hurlbert AH, Stegen JC. When should species richness be energy limited, and how would we know? Ecol Lett 2014; 17:401-13. [DOI: 10.1111/ele.12240] [Citation(s) in RCA: 98] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2013] [Revised: 09/02/2013] [Accepted: 12/06/2013] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Allen H. Hurlbert
- Department of Biology; University of North Carolina; Chapel Hill NC 27599-3280 USA
- Curriculum for Environment and Ecology; University of North Carolina; Chapel Hill NC 27599 USA
| | - James C. Stegen
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; 902 Battelle Blvd P.O. Box 999, MSIN J4-18 Richland WA 99352 USA
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19
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Miller ET, Zanne AE, Ricklefs RE. Niche conservatism constrains Australian honeyeater assemblages in stressful environments. Ecol Lett 2013; 16:1186-94. [PMID: 23848846 DOI: 10.1111/ele.12156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2013] [Revised: 04/01/2013] [Accepted: 06/17/2013] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The hypothesis of phylogenetic niche conservatism proposes that most extant members of a clade remain in ancestral environments because expansion into new ecological space imposes a selectional load on a population. A prediction that follows is that local assemblages contain increasingly phylogenetically clustered subsets of species with increasing difference from the ancestral environment of a clade. We test this in Australian Meliphagidae, a continental radiation of birds that originated in wet, subtropical environments, but subsequently spread to drier environments as Australia became more arid during the late Cenozoic. We find local assemblages are increasingly phylogenetically clustered along a gradient of decreasing precipitation. The pattern is less clear along a temperature gradient. We develop a novel phyloclimatespace to visualise the expansion of some lineages into drier habitats. Although few species extend into arid regions, those that do occupy larger ranges and thus local species richness does not decline predictably with precipitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- E T Miller
- Department of Biology, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO 63121, USA.
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20
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Abstract
Two conflicting hypotheses have been proposed to explain large-scale species diversity patterns and dynamics. The unbounded hypothesis proposes that regional diversity depends only on time and diversification rate and increases without limit. The bounded hypothesis proposes that ecological constraints place upper limits on regional diversity and that diversity is usually close to its limit. Recent evidence from the fossil record, phylogenetic analysis, biogeography, and phenotypic disparity during lineage diversification suggests that diversity is constrained by ecological processes but that it is rarely asymptotic. Niche space is often unfilled or can be more finely subdivided and still permit coexistence, and new niche space is often created before ecological limits are reached. Damped increases in diversity over time are the prevalent pattern, suggesting the need for a new 'damped increase hypothesis'. The damped increase hypothesis predicts that diversity generally increases through time but that its rate of increase is often slowed by ecological constraints. However, slowing due to niche limitation must be distinguished from other possible mechanisms creating similar patterns. These include sampling artifacts, the inability to detect extinctions or declines in clade diversity with some methods, the distorting effects of correlated speciation-extinction dynamics, the likelihood that opportunities for allopatric speciation will vary in space and time, and the role of undetected natural enemies in reducing host ranges and thus slowing speciation rates. The taxonomic scope of regional diversity studies must be broadened to include all ecologically similar species so that ecological constraints may be accurately inferred. The damped increase hypothesis suggests that information on evolutionary processes such as time-for-speciation and intrinsic diversification rates as well as ecological factors will be required to explain why regional diversity varies among times, places and taxa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Howard V Cornell
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
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21
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22
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Belmaker J, Jetz W. Regional Pools and Environmental Controls of Vertebrate Richness. Am Nat 2012; 179:512-23. [DOI: 10.1086/664610] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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23
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Terblanche JS, Hoffmann AA, Mitchell KA, Rako L, le Roux PC, Chown SL. Ecologically relevant measures of tolerance to potentially lethal temperatures. J Exp Biol 2011; 214:3713-25. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.061283] [Citation(s) in RCA: 301] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Summary
The acute thermal tolerance of ectotherms has been measured in a variety of ways; these include assays where organisms are shifted abruptly to stressful temperatures and assays where organisms experience temperatures that are ramped more slowly to stressful levels. Ramping assays are thought to be more relevant to natural conditions where sudden abrupt shifts are unlikely to occur often, but it has been argued that thermal limits established under ramping conditions are underestimates of true thermal limits because stresses due to starvation and/or desiccation can arise under ramping. These confounding effects might also impact the variance and heritability of thermal tolerance. We argue here that ramping assays are useful in capturing aspects of ecological relevance even though there is potential for confounding effects of other stresses that can also influence thermal limits in nature. Moreover, we show that the levels of desiccation and starvation experienced by ectotherms in ramping assays will often be minor unless the assays involve small animals and last for many hours. Empirical data illustrate that the combined effects of food and humidity on thermal limits under ramping and sudden shifts to stressful conditions are unpredictable; in Drosophila melanogaster the presence of food decreased rather than increased thermal limits, whereas in Ceratitis capitata they had little impact. The literature provides examples where thermal limits are increased under ramping presumably because of the potential for physiological changes leading to acclimation. It is unclear whether heritabilities and population differentiation will necessarily be lower under ramping because of confounding effects. Although it is important to clearly define experimental methods, particularly when undertaking comparative assessments, and to understand potential confounding effects, thermotolerance assays based on ramping remain an important tool for understanding and predicting species responses to environmental change. An important area for further development is to identify the impact of rates of temperature change under field and laboratory conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- John S. Terblanche
- Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
| | - Ary A. Hoffmann
- The University of Melbourne, Bio21 Institute, 30 Flemington Road, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
| | - Katherine A. Mitchell
- The University of Melbourne, Bio21 Institute, 30 Flemington Road, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
| | - Lea Rako
- The University of Melbourne, Bio21 Institute, 30 Flemington Road, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
| | - Peter C. le Roux
- Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
| | - Steven L. Chown
- Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
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24
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Chown SL, Sørensen JG, Terblanche JS. Water loss in insects: an environmental change perspective. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 2011; 57:1070-84. [PMID: 21640726 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2011.05.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 192] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2011] [Revised: 05/06/2011] [Accepted: 05/06/2011] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
In the context of global environmental change much of the focus has been on changing temperatures. However, patterns of rainfall and water availability have also been changing and are expected to continue doing so. In consequence, understanding the responses of insects to water availability is important, especially because it has a pronounced influence on insect activity, distribution patterns, and species richness. Here we therefore provide a critical review of key questions that either are being or need to be addressed in this field. First, an overview of insect behavioural responses to changing humidity conditions and the mechanisms underlying sensing of humidity variation is provided. The primary sensors in insects belong to the temperature receptor protein superfamily of cation channels. Temperature-activated transient receptor potential ion channels, or thermoTRPs, respond to a diverse range of stimuli and may be a primary integrator of sensory information, such as environmental temperature and moisture. Next we touch briefly on the components of water loss, drawing attention to a new, universal model of the water costs of gas exchange and its implications for responses to a warming, and in places drying, world. We also provide an overview of new understanding of the role of the sub-elytral chamber for water conservation, and developments in understanding of the role of cuticular hydrocarbons in preventing water loss. Because of an increasing focus on the molecular basis of responses to dehydration stress we touch briefly on this area, drawing attention to the role of sugars, heat shock proteins, aquaporins, and LEA proteins. Next we consider phenotypic plasticity or acclimation responses in insect water balance after initial exposures to altered humidity, temperature or nutrition. Although beneficial acclimation has been demonstrated in several instances, this is not always the case. Laboratory studies show that responses to selection for enhanced ability to survive water stress do evolve and that genetic variation for traits underlying such responses does exist in many species. However, in others, especially tropical, typically narrowly distributed species, this appears not to be the case. Using the above information we then demonstrate that habitat alteration, climate change, biological invasions, pollution and overexploitation are likely to be having considerable effects on insect populations mediated through physiological responses (or the lack thereof) to water stress, and that these effects may often be non-intuitive.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven L Chown
- Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa.
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25
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Algar AC, Kerr JT, Currie DJ. Quantifying the importance of regional and local filters for community trait structure in tropical and temperate zones. Ecology 2011; 92:903-14. [PMID: 21661553 DOI: 10.1890/10-0606.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
The influence of regional and local processes on community structure is a major focus of ecology. Classically, ecologists have used local-regional richness regressions to evaluate the role of local and regional processes in determining community structure, an approach that has numerous flaws. Here, we implemented a novel trait-based approach that treats local and regional influences as a continuum, rather than a dichotomy. Using hylid frogs (Hylidae), we compared trait dispersion among members of local species assemblages to the trait dispersion in the regional assemblage from which they were drawn. Similarly, we compared trait dispersion in the regional assemblages to dispersion in the continental species pool. We estimated the contributions of local and regional filters, and we compared their strength in temperate and tropical zones. We found that regional and local filters explained 80% of the total variation among local assemblages in community body size dispersion. Overall, regional filters reduced trait dispersion, and local filters increased it, a pattern driven by particularly strong antagonistic effects in temperate zones that reduced the realized total variation by more than 40%. In contrast, local and regional filters acted in concert in tropical regions. Patterns within the tropics did not differ from the random expectation based on a null model, but within the temperate zone, local community filtering was stronger than expected by chance. Furthermore, in temperate regions, antagonistic regional and local filtering masked from 76% to 90% of the total variation in trait dispersion. Together, these results suggest that there are fundamental differences in the scale and identity of the processes determining community structure in temperate and tropical regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam C Algar
- Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie Curie Pvt, Ottawa, Ontario KIN6N5, Canada.
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26
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Lessard JP, Borregaard MK, Fordyce JA, Rahbek C, Weiser MD, Dunn RR, Sanders NJ. Strong influence of regional species pools on continent-wide structuring of local communities. Proc Biol Sci 2011; 279:266-74. [PMID: 21676973 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 89] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
There is a long tradition in ecology of evaluating the relative contribution of the regional species pool and local interactions on the structure of local communities. Similarly, a growing number of studies assess the phylogenetic structure of communities, relative to that in the regional species pool, to examine the interplay between broad-scale evolutionary and fine-scale ecological processes. Finally, a renewed interest in the influence of species source pools on communities has shown that the definition of the source pool influences interpretations of patterns of community structure. We use a continent-wide dataset of local ant communities and implement ecologically explicit source pool definitions to examine the relative importance of regional species pools and local interactions for shaping community structure. Then we assess which factors underlie systematic variation in the structure of communities along climatic gradients. We find that the average phylogenetic relatedness of species in ant communities decreases from tropical to temperate regions, but the strength of this relationship depends on the level of ecological realism in the definition of source pools. We conclude that the evolution of climatic niches influences the phylogenetic structure of regional source pools and that the influence of regional source pools on local community structure is strong.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Philippe Lessard
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
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27
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Jenkins CN, Sanders NJ, Andersen AN, Arnan X, Brühl CA, Cerda X, Ellison AM, Fisher BL, Fitzpatrick MC, Gotelli NJ, Gove AD, Guénard B, Lattke JE, Lessard JP, McGlynn TP, Menke SB, Parr CL, Philpott SM, Vasconcelos HL, Weiser MD, Dunn RR. Global diversity in light of climate change: the case of ants. DIVERS DISTRIB 2011. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00770.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
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28
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Wiens JJ, Pyron RA, Moen DS. Phylogenetic origins of local-scale diversity patterns and the causes of Amazonian megadiversity. Ecol Lett 2011; 14:643-52. [PMID: 21535341 DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01625.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 111] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
What explains the striking variation in local species richness across the globe and the remarkable diversity of rainforest sites in Amazonia? Here, we apply a novel phylogenetic approach to these questions, using treefrogs (Hylidae) as a model system. Hylids show dramatic variation in local richness globally and incredible local diversity in Amazonia. We find that variation in local richness is not explained primarily by climatic factors, rates of diversification (speciation and extinction) nor morphological variation. Instead, local richness patterns are explained predominantly by the timing of colonization of each region, and Amazonian megadiversity is linked to the long-term sympatry of multiple clades in that region. Our results also suggest intriguing interactions between clade diversification, trait evolution and the accumulation of local richness. Specifically, sympatry between clades seems to slow diversification and trait evolution, but prevents neither the accumulation of local richness over time nor the co-occurrence of similar species.
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Affiliation(s)
- John J Wiens
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA.
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29
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Stevens RD. Relative effects of time for speciation and tropical niche conservatism on the latitudinal diversity gradient of phyllostomid bats. Proc Biol Sci 2011; 278:2528-36. [PMID: 21208951 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Determinants of contemporary patterns of diversity, particularly those spanning extensive latitudinal gradients, are some of the most intensely debated issues in ecology. Recently, focus has shifted from a contemporary environmental perspective to a historical one in an attempt to better understand the construction of latitudinal gradients. Although the vast majority of research on historical mechanisms has focused on tropical niche conservatism (TNC), other historical scenarios could produce similar latitudinal gradients. Herein, I formalize predictions to distinguish between two such historical processes--namely time for speciation (TFS) and TNC--and test relative support based on diversity gradients of New World bats. TFS and TNC are distinctly spatial and environmental mechanisms, respectively. Nonetheless, because of the way that environmental characteristics vary spatially, these two mechanisms are hard to distinguish. Evidence provided herein suggests that TNC has had a more important effect than TFS in determining diversity gradients of New World bats. Indeed, relative effects of different historical mechanisms, as well as relative effects of historical and contemporary environmental determinants, are probably context-dependent. Future research should move away from attempting to identify the mechanism with primacy and instead attempt to understand the particular contexts in which different mechanisms have greater influence on diversity gradients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard D Stevens
- Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
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30
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Pavoine S, Bonsall MB. Measuring biodiversity to explain community assembly: a unified approach. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2010; 86:792-812. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-185x.2010.00171.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 402] [Impact Index Per Article: 28.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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31
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32
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Wiens JJ, Ackerly DD, Allen AP, Anacker BL, Buckley LB, Cornell HV, Damschen EI, Jonathan Davies T, Grytnes JA, Harrison SP, Hawkins BA, Holt RD, McCain CM, Stephens PR. Niche conservatism as an emerging principle in ecology and conservation biology. Ecol Lett 2010; 13:1310-24. [PMID: 20649638 DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01515.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 777] [Impact Index Per Article: 55.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- John J Wiens
- Department of Ecology & Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
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33
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Population responses within a landscape matrix: a macrophysiological approach to understanding climate change impacts. Evol Ecol 2009. [DOI: 10.1007/s10682-009-9329-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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