Explore the vast range of titles available.

Understanding how species’ thermal limits have evolved across the tree of life is central to predicting species’ responses to climate change. Here, using experimentally-derived estimates of thermal tolerance limits for over 2000 terrestrial and aquatic species, we show that most of the variation in thermal tolerance can be attributed to a combination of adaptation to current climatic extremes, and the existence of evolutionary ‘attractors’ that reflect either boundaries or optima in thermal tolerance limits. Our results also reveal deep-time climate legacies in ectotherms, whereby orders that originated in cold paleoclimates have presently lower cold tolerance limits than those with warm thermal ancestry. Conversely, heat tolerance appears unrelated to climate ancestry. Cold tolerance has evolved more quickly than heat tolerance in endotherms and ectotherms. If the past tempo of evolution for upper thermal limits continues, adaptive responses in thermal limits will have limited potential to rescue the large majority of species given the unprecedented rate of contemporary climate change. Historical climate adaptation can give insight into the potential for adaptation to contemporary changing climates. Here Bennett et al. investigate thermal tolerance evolution across much of the tree of life and find different effects of ancestral climate on the subsequent evolution of ectotherms vs. endotherms.

Ecological niche modeling (ENM) is a broadly used tool in different fields of plant ecology. Despite the importance of edaphic conditions in determining the niche of terrestrial plant species, edaphic data have rarely been included in ENMs of plant species perhaps because such data are not available for many regions. Recently, edaphic data has been made available at a global scale allowing its potential inclusion and evaluation on ENM performance for plant species. Here, we take advantage of such data and address the following main questions: What is the influence of distinct predictor variables (e.g. climatic vs edaphic) on different ENM algorithms? and what is the relationship between the performance of different predictors and geographic characteristics of species? We used 125 plant species distributed over the Neotropical region to explore the effect on ENMs of using edaphic data available from the SoilGrids database and its combination with climatic data from the CHELSA database. In addition, we related these different predictor variables to geographic characteristics of the target species and different ENM algorithms. The use of different predictors (climatic, edaphic, and both) significantly affected model performance and spatial complexity of the predictions. We showed that the use of global edaphic plus climatic variables generates ENMs with similar or better accuracy compared to those constructed only with climate variables. Moreover, the performance of models considering these different predictors, separately or jointly, was related to geographic properties of species records, such as number and distribution range. The large geographic extent, the variability of environments and the different species' geographical characteristics considered here allowed us to demonstrate that global edaphic data adds useful information for plant ENMs. This is particularly valuable for studies of species that are distributed in regions where more detailed information on soil properties is poor or does not even exist.

Identifying the drivers and processes that determine globally the geographic range size of species is crucial to understanding the geographic distribution of biodiversity and further predicting the response of species to current global changes. However, these drivers and processes are still poorly understood, and no ecological explanation has emerged yet as preponderant in explaining the extent of species’ geographical range. Here, we identify the main drivers of the geographic range size variation in freshwater fishes at global and biogeographic scales and determine how these drivers affect range size both directly and indirectly. We tested the main hypotheses already proposed to explain range size variation, using geographic ranges of 8,147 strictly freshwater fish species (i.e., 63% of all known species). We found that, contrary to terrestrial organisms, for which climate and topography seem preponderant in determining species’ range size, the geographic range sizes of freshwater fishes aremostly explained by the species’ position within the river network, and by the historical connection among river basins during Quaternary low-sea-level periods. Large-ranged fish species inhabit preferentially lowland areas of river basins, where hydrological connectivity is the highest, and also are found in river basins that were historically connected. The disproportionately high explanatory power of these two drivers suggests that connectivity is the key component of riverine fish geographic range sizes, independent of any other potential driver, and indicates that the accelerated rates in river fragmentation might strongly affect fish species distribution and freshwater biodiversity.

Understanding the mechanisms of biological invasion is fundamental for biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene. This study focused on a large-scale colonization pattern of exotic seed plants, which include 1094 species characterized by different geographical origins, into the insular flora of Japan. We investigated a nation-wide pattern of species richness and phylogenetic structure (clustering/over-dispersion) of exotic and its recipient native species (4664 species). We tested the invasion hypotheses associated with environmental filtering, biological resistance of recipient assemblages, human disturbance and biogeographical origins of exotics. The exotics originated from the same (Palearctic and Indo-Malay) and adjacent (Nearctic and Oceanic) biogeographical regions were widely distributed across the country under temperate climate condition, whereas tropical exotic plants from remote regions (Afrotropic, Australasian, and Neotropical) colonized mainly the south-western parts of Japan. Exotic species richness and phylogenetic structure, especially those from the same/adjacent regions, were well explained by climatic, edaphic, and topographic factors, supporting the environmental filtering hypothesis. For all the biogeographical origins, exotic richness was positively associated with native richness, opposing the biological resistance hypothesis. Human disturbance was positively associated with exotic richness, while its relationships with the exotics’ phylogenetic structure varied according to their biogeographical origins. These findings indicate that site’s invasibility was determined by the combination of exotic’s biogeographical origins and abiotic/biotic conditions of its recipient native flora. Our results suggest that global warming may accelerate the northward expansion of tropical exotic plants while future land-use changes can promote biological invasion regardless of exotics’ origins.

Species’ range size is a fundamental unit of analysis in biodiversity research, given its association with extinction risk and species richness. One of its most notable patterns is its positive relationship with latitude, which has been considered an ecogeographical rule called Rapoport’s rule. Despite this rule being confirmed for various taxonomic groups, its validity has been widely discussed and several taxa still lack a formal assessment. Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain their potential mechanisms, with those related to temperature and elevational being the most supported thus far. In this study, we employed two level of analyses (cross-species and assemblage) to investigate the validity of Rapoport’s rule in spiny lizards (genus Sceloporus ). Additionally, we evaluated four environmental-related hypotheses (minimum temperature, temperature variability, temperature stability since the last glacial maximum, and elevation) posed to explain such pattern, contrasting our results to those patterns expected under a null model of range position. Our results provided support for Rapoport’s rule at both levels of analyses, contrasting with null expectations. Consistently, minimum temperature and elevation were the most relevant variables explaining the spatial variation in range size. At the cross-species level, our null simulations revealed that both variables deviated significantly from random expectations. Conversely, at the assemblage level, none of the variables were statistically different from the expected relationships. We discussed the implication of our findings in relation to the ecology and evolution of spiny lizards.

Despite the long-standing interest in the organization of ant communities across elevational gradients, few studies have incorporated the evolutionary information to understand the historical processes that underlay such patterns. Through the evaluation of phylogenetic α and β-diversity, we analyzed the structure of leaf-litter ant communities along the Cofre de Perote mountain in Mexico and evaluated whether deterministic- (i.e., habitat filtering, interspecific competition) or stochastic-driven processes (i.e., dispersal limitation) were driving the observed patterns. Lowland and some highland sites showed phylogenetic clustering, whereas intermediate elevations and the highest site presented phylogenetic overdispersion. We infer that strong environmental constraints found at the bottom and the top elevations are favoring closely-related species to prevail at those elevations. Conversely, less stressful climatic conditions at intermediate elevations suggest interspecific interactions are more important in these environments. Total phylogenetic dissimilarity was driven by the turnover component, indicating that the turnover of ant species along the mountain is actually shifts of lineages adapted to particular locations resembling their ancestral niche. The greater phylogenetic dissimilarity between communities was related to greater temperature differences probably due to narrow thermal tolerances inherent to several ant lineages that evolved in more stable conditions. Our results suggest that the interplay between environmental filtering, interspecific competition and habitat specialization plays an important role in the assembly of leaf-litter ant communities along elevational gradients.

Aim Understanding the causes and consequences of biological invasions remains a challenge for several disciplines, including biogeography. One major issue in overcoming this challenge is disentangling the confounding mechanisms of species invasiveness and community invasibility. Here, we tackle this issue by applying a novel approach based on the phylogenetic affinities between exotic species and natives in the recipient community to elucidate naturalization and pre‐adaptation processes. Location Japan. Taxon Seed plants. Methods Geographical co‐occurrence data for 1,094 exotics and 4,869 native species (including 1,676 endemics) were created at the 10‐km grid‐cell and vegetation‐plot levels. For individual exotic species, standardized effect size of phylogenetic species variability (PSVSES) of the recipient native assemblage (i.e. phylogenetic fields) was calculated and its clustering/over‐dispersion was tested, representing exotic invasiveness in relation to invasibility of native recipients. To identify drivers of species invasiveness, the correlation of PSVSES with species attributes, involving phylogenetic distance between each exotic and native species, was explored. Results Phylogenetic fields (PSVSES) showed significant over‐dispersion (~16% exotics) or clustering (~14% exotics). Interspecific variation of PSVSES among exotics was substantially explained by species ecological attributes. Geographical extent and climatic niche widths were negatively correlated with PSVSES. Preference for human influence was positively correlated with PSVSES at the 10‐km grid‐cell level, but negatively at the vegetation‐plot level. Exotics colonized from the Palearctic and Indo‐Malay regions, which belong to the same biogeographical region as East Asia, tended to have clustered phylogenetic fields. Main conclusions Environmental filtering and biotic sorting both played a key role in exotic plant colonization, supporting both of Darwin's contradictory hypotheses of naturalization versus pre‐adaptation. Clustered phylogenetic fields indicated that an exotic colonizes its recipient assemblage through abiotic filtering (i.e. pre‐adaptation); at the same time, phylogenetic over‐dispersion was indicative of naturalization for exotics that occupied a biotic niche space among native recipients (i.e. naturalization). Phylogenetic field patterns depended on species’ ecological attributes, including phylogenetic relatedness between exotics and recipient natives, especially reflecting invasibility at the local‐community level.

Tropical montane cloud forest harbors great species diversity in a small area of the planet and has a high proportion of endemics. At the local scale, species richness is low, but species turnover is high. We examined how amphibian species richness and the number of endemic species varies in cloud forests along a latitudinal gradient (23°N–5°S) in the Neotropics, where the latitudinal distribution of cloud forest is the most widespread compared with all of the other tropical regions. We also compared diversity patterns between anurans, caudates and gymnophionids, and tested their relationship to climate variables. Based on an analysis of 1005 species, we found that amphibian species richness increased towards the equator, but the increase was not linear. In Middle America there is a notable fluctuation in the number of species. The greatest species richness occurred between 6°N and 7°N, and there was an abrupt change between this region and Middle America. Analyses at the level of order and the endemic species level revealed two opposite patterns: anuran, gymnophionid and endemic species richness increased towards lower latitudes, while salamander species richness increased towards northern latitudes. Climate variables explained less than half of the variations in total species richness, suggesting that factors other than climate such as the historical biogeography of each taxon, orographic heterogeneity and the natural history traits of each group may be playing relevant roles in the patterns observed.

How climate affects species distributions is a longstanding question receiving renewed interest owing to the need to predict the impacts of global warming on biodiversity. Is climate change forcing species to live near their critical thermal limits? Are these limits likely to change through natural selection? These and other important questions can be addressed with models relating geographical distributions of species with climate data, but inferences made with these models are highly contingent on non-climatic factors such as biotic interactions. Improved understanding of climate change effects on species will require extensive analysis of thermal physiological traits, but such data are both scarce and scattered. To overcome current limitations, we created the GlobTherm database. The database contains experimentally derived species' thermal tolerance data currently comprising over 2,000 species of terrestrial, freshwater, intertidal and marine multicellular algae, plants, fungi, and animals. The GlobTherm database will be maintained and curated by iDiv with the aim to keep expanding it, and enable further investigations on the effects of climate on the distribution of life on Earth.

Aim: Bats are commonly considered in the literature as an example of strong niche conservatism. However, no specific tests have been conducted to investigate the extent to which bat species niches are evolutionarily conserved. We address this question at different phylogenetic scales using phylogenetic and geographical approaches. Location: Global. Methods: We used nine climatic variables to describe a multivariate representation of bat climatic niches. We measured niche position, niche breadth and niche overlap between sister species pairs. We performed a Mantel test to verify whether niche overlap was related to phylogenetic distance among species. We also tested for phylogenetic signal and compared the relative fit of evolutionary models with the observed variation of niche features. Results: Niche overlap and phylogenetic distances were not related. At deeper evolutionary scales, we found evidence that climatic niche evolved more slowly than expected under a Brownian motion model. This indicates phylogenetic conservatism, particularly for niche position of Vespertilionidae and Molossidae. Main conclusions: We found evidence of phylogenetic niche conservatism at the order and family levels but not at the species level. Evolution of climatic niches is non-stationary across the order Chiroptera, consistent with the different histories of clades. We stress the importance of taking into account the method of choice, the niche feature and the phylogenetic scale being evaluated when testing for phylogenetic niche conservatism at higher taxonomic levels and its influence on biodiversity gradients.