Current climate, but also long‐term climate changes and human impacts, determine the geographic distribution of European mammal diversity
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present tools to unify range dynamics and community-level processes into a single analytical framework to predict diversity variations across scales through process-based models linking com-munity ecology and biogeography.
Abstract: This work was supported by the projects ‘Developing tools to unify range dynamics and community-level processes into a single analytical framework’ (cooperation project Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas-Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico CSIC-CNPq P2011BR0071) and ‘Predicting diversity variations across scales through process-based models linking com-munity ecology and biogeography’ (Pesquisador Visitante Especial CNPq, PVE314523/2014-6). AMCS was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF 331623 ‘COMMSTRUCT’), by a ‘Juan de la Cierva’ Fellowship (IJCI-2014-19502) funded by the cur-rent Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, by Universidad de Alcala, through a travel grant within the ‘Ayudas de movilidad de personal docente y personal investigador’ program, and by the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (contract CEEIND/03425/2017). RL’s research is funded by CNPq (grant #306694/2018-2). This paper is a contribution of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) in Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation funded by Brazilian Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes, CNPq and Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do estado de Goias (grant MCTIC/CNPq/FAPEG 465610/2014-5).
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TL;DR: The tropical niche conservatism (TNC) hypothesis and the out of the tropics (OTT) hypothesis propose mechanisms generating patterns of species diversity across warm-to-cold thermal gradients at large spatial scales as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: The tropical niche conservatism (TNC) hypothesis and the out of the tropics (OTT) hypothesis propose mechanisms generating patterns of species diversity across warm‐to‐cold thermal gradients at large spatial scales. These two hypotheses both integrate ecological and biogeography‐related evolutionary factors, but they predict opposite patterns for phylogenetic structure. Mount Namjagbarwa possesses one of the longest elevational gradients for flowering plant diversity in the world. We aim to analyse the elevational patterns of the phylogenetic structure of flowering plants in this mountain, and investigate underlying causes for the emergence of the patterns.
6 citations
TL;DR: This paper conducted a comprehensive review of literature on recent progress in climate change and biodiversity conservation research and identified the leading countries, institutions and researchers in this research area, and explored the current research trends and existing scientific knowledge as well as to provide perspectives on the topic.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors focused on European ants and compared new techniques to classical analyses based on regional lists and taxonomic methods and found that grid-based regionalizations using novel distribution data improved biogeographical transitions.
Abstract: Biogeographical regionalization is scant for most insect groups due to shortfalls in distribution and phylogenetic information, namely the Wallacean and Darwinian shortfalls respectively. Here, we focused on the European ants and compared new techniques to classical analyses based on regional lists and taxonomic methods. We asked the following: (1) Can grid‐based regionalizations using novel distribution data improve biogeographical transitions? and (2) Can phylogenetic approaches reveal new insights regarding ant evolutionary history?
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the spatial distribution of threats and resources was used to build an index of available conservation capacity across a species' range, and the authors identified locations within each species range at risk of contraction due to a deficit of resources available to potentially thwart present threats.
Abstract: Significance Geospatial approaches are increasingly vital for conservation with applications of gap analysis informing decision-making and resource allocation. We extend traditional assessments by incorporating both the spatial distribution of threats and resources to build an index of available conservation capacity across a species’ range. Using 91 African carnivores, we identified locations within each species’ range at risk of contraction due to a deficit of resources available to potentially thwart present threats. Our results raise new concerns for African carnivores, particularly small-bodied species, contrary to current perceptions of their extinction risks.
2 citations
TL;DR: Zhang et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated how the spatial distribution of anthropogenic pressure and wild boar nests in the Sino-Russia borderland and how anthropogenic pressures and the border influence on the wild boars' nest site selection.
Abstract: Geopolitical borderlands are politically sensitive areas and biodiversity hotspots, strictly controlled by the government and military. How to ensure political security, while protecting the biodiversity in borderlands is a problem for ecologists and governments. In this study, the nest site selection of the wild boar Sus scrofa was a case study in the Sino-Russia borderland to understand the survival strategy of wild life under anthropogenic pressure. We investigated (a) how the spatial distribution of anthropogenic pressure and wild boar nests in the borderland and (b) how anthropogenic pressure and the border influence on the wild boars’ nest site selection. The Getis-Ord Gi* analysis was used to analyze the distribution patterns of wild boar nest sites and anthropogenic pressures in the borderland, the Structural Equation Models was used to explore the influence of border, roads, settlements, agricultural land, grassland and anthropogenic pressure on wild boars’ nest site selection. The results indicated that wild boar nest sites are close to the border, roads and agricultural land and away from settlements and grassland. Regardless of the combination of anthropogenic pressure, wild boars make the most advantageous choice and prefer to be closer to the borderland. We speculated that military control played a vital role in borderlands for animal protection under anthropogenic pressure. Wild boars benefit from the prohibition of anthropogenic persecution due to military control. Compared with existing measures, we suggest a different protection/wildlife management strategy, what we need to do may be to prohibit anthropogenic persecution rather than perform other human interventions to protect animals. However, for a species with trouble potential, we need to base our conservation strategies on the recovery of top predators, and play the community control role of top predators to avoid the occurrence of trouble.
2 citations
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TL;DR: Diversity from southern to northern Europe in the extent of allelic variation and species subdivision is seen; this is attributed to rapid expansion northward and the varied topography of southern refugia allowing populations to diverge through several ice ages.
Abstract: Population structure is the result of both present processes and past history. Molecular markers are proving of great value in describing the former, and it is important to similarly determine the latter in order to understand their respective contributions. The study of palaeo-climates has also advanced significantly, and in particular that of the Pleistocene ice ages, which modified species ranges considerably. The last ice age and rapid post-glacial colonization of Europe is summarized. Possible population genetic consequences of expansion northward from southern refugia, and those of remaining in these mountainous regions are discussed. A series of recent case studies are detailed where DNA sequence information has been used to describe species genetic variation and subdivision across Europe. These include a grasshopper, the hedgehog, oak trees, the common beech, the black alder, the brown bear, newts, shrews, water vole, silver fir and house mice. These molecular data confirm southern peninsulas of Europe as major ice age refugia, and in most cases demonstrate that genetically distinct taxa emerged from them. They can thus define genomic differences and so greatly augment previous fossil data. The refugial genomes contributed differently in various species to the re-colonization of Europe, with three broad patterns described as paradigms—«grasshopper», «hedgehog» and «bear». These different expansion patterns produced clusters of hybrid zones where they made contact, and it is argued that many species genomes may be further cryptically subdivided. A reduction in diversity from southern to northern Europe in the extent of allelic variation and species subdivision is seen; this is attributed to rapid expansion northward and the varied topography of southern refugia allowing populations to diverge through several ice ages. The differences in DNA sequence indicate that some species have been diverging in refugial regions for a few ice ages at most, whilst distinct lineages in other species suggest much more ancient separation.
2,566 citations
TL;DR: The biodiversity of eukaryote species and their extinction rates, distributions, and protection is reviewed, and what the future rates of species extinction will be, how well protected areas will slow extinction Rates, and how the remaining gaps in knowledge might be filled are reviewed.
Abstract: Background A principal function of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is to “perform regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity.” In December 2013, its second plenary session approved a program to begin a global assessment in 2015. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and five other biodiversity-related conventions have adopted IPBES as their science-policy interface, so these assessments will be important in evaluating progress toward the CBD’s Aichi Targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020. As a contribution toward such assessment, we review the biodiversity of eukaryote species and their extinction rates, distributions, and protection. We document what we know, how it likely differs from what we do not, and how these differences affect biodiversity statistics. Interestingly, several targets explicitly mention “known species”—a strong, if implicit, statement of incomplete knowledge. We start by asking how many species are known and how many remain undescribed. We then consider by how much human actions inflate extinction rates. Much depends on where species are, because different biomes contain different numbers of species of different susceptibilities. Biomes also suffer different levels of damage and have unequal levels of protection. How extinction rates will change depends on how and where threats expand and whether greater protection counters them. Different visualizations of species biodiversity. ( A ) The distributions of 9927 bird species. ( B ) The 4964 species with smaller than the median geographical range size. ( C ) The 1308 species assessed as threatened with a high risk of extinction by BirdLife International for the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. ( D ) The 1080 threatened species with less than the median range size. (D) provides a strong geographical focus on where local conservation actions can have the greatest global impact. Additional biodiversity maps are available at www.biodiversitymapping.org. Advances Recent studies have clarified where the most vulnerable species live, where and how humanity changes the planet, and how this drives extinctions. These data are increasingly accessible, bringing greater transparency to science and governance. Taxonomic catalogs of plants, terrestrial vertebrates, freshwater fish, and some marine taxa are sufficient to assess their status and the limitations of our knowledge. Most species are undescribed, however. The species we know best have large geographical ranges and are often common within them. Most known species have small ranges, however, and such species are typically newer discoveries. The numbers of known species with very small ranges are increasing quickly, even in well-known taxa. They are geographically concentrated and are disproportionately likely to be threatened or already extinct. We expect unknown species to share these characteristics. Current rates of extinction are about 1000 times the background rate of extinction. These are higher than previously estimated and likely still underestimated. Future rates will depend on many factors and are poised to increase. Finally, although there has been rapid progress in developing protected areas, such efforts are not ecologically representative, nor do they optimally protect biodiversity. Outlook Progress on assessing biodiversity will emerge from continued expansion of the many recently created online databases, combining them with new global data sources on changing land and ocean use and with increasingly crowdsourced data on species’ distributions. Examples of practical conservation that follow from using combined data in Colombia and Brazil can be found at www.savingspecies.org and www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3zjeJW2NVk.
2,360 citations
Abstract: I Genesis, God blesses human beings and bids us to take dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and every other living thing. We are entreated to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). The bad news, and the good news, is that we have almost succeeded. There is little debate in scientific circles about the importance of human influence on ecosystems. According to scientists’ reports, we appropriate over 40% of the net primary productivity (the green material) produced on Earth each year (Vitousek et al. 1986, Rojstaczer et al. 2001). We consume 35% of the productivity of the oceanic shelf (Pauly and Christensen 1995), and we use 60% of freshwater run-off (Postel et al. 1996). The unprecedented escalation in both human population and consumption in the 20th century has resulted in environmental crises never before encountered in the history of humankind and the world (McNeill 2000). E. O. Wilson (2002) claims it would now take four Earths to meet the consumption demands of the current human population, if every human consumed at the level of the average US inhabitant. The influence of human beings on the planet has become so pervasive that it is hard to find adults in any country who have not seen the environment around them reduced in natural values during their lifetimes—woodlots converted to agriculture, agricultural lands converted to suburban development, suburban development converted to urban areas. The cumulative effect of these many local changes is the global phenomenon of human influence on nature, a new geological epoch some call the “anthropocene” (Steffen and Tyson 2001). Human influence is arguably the most important factor affecting life of all kinds in today’s world (Lande 1998, Terborgh 1999, Pimm 2001, UNEP 2001). Yet despite the broad consensus among biologists about the importance of human influence on nature, this phenomenon and its implications are not fully appreciated by the larger human community, which does not recognize them in its economic systems (Hall et al. 2001) or in most of its political decisions (Soulé and Terborgh 1999, Chapin et al. 2000). In part, this lack of appreciation may be due to scientists’ propensity to express themselves in terms like “appropriation of net primary productivity” or “exponential population growth,” abstractions that require some training to understand. It may be due to historical assumptions about and habits inherited from times when human beings, as a group, had dramatically less influence on the biosphere. Now the individual deci-
2,125 citations
University of California, Irvine1, University of Nottingham2, University of Delaware3, University of Ottawa4, Centre national de la recherche scientifique5, Kansas State University6, Michigan State University7, Institut de recherche pour le développement8, University of Georgia9, Miami University10, University of Leeds11
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between climate and biodiversity and conclude that the interaction between water and energy, either directly or indirectly, provides a strong explanation for globally extensive plant and animal diversity gradients, but for animals there also is a latitudinal shift in the relative importance of ambient energy vs. water moving from the poles to the equator.
Abstract: It is often claimed that we do not understand the forces driving the global diversity gradient. However, an extensive literature suggests that contemporary climate constrains terrestrial taxonomic richness over broad geographic extents. Here, we review the empirical literature to examine the nature and form of the relationship between climate and richness. Our goals were to document the support for the climatically based energy hypothesis, and within the constraints imposed by correlative analyses, to evaluate two versions of the hypothesis: the productivity and ambient energy hypotheses. Focusing on studies extending over 800 km, we found that measures of energy, water, or water-energy balance explain spatial variation in richness better than other climatic and non-climatic variables in 82 of 85 cases. Even when considered individually and in isolation, water/ energy variables explain on average over 60% of the variation in the richness of a wide range of plant and animal groups. Further, water variables usually represent the strongest predictors in the tropics, subtropics, and warm temperate zones, whereas energy variables (for animals) or water-energy variables (for plants) dominate in high latitudes. We conclude that the interaction between water and energy, either directly or indirectly (via plant productivity), provides a strong explanation for globally extensive plant and animal diversity gradients, but for animals there also is a latitudinal shift in the relative importance of ambient energy vs. water moving from the poles to the equator. Although contemporary climate is not the only factor influencing species richness and may not explain the diversity pattern for all taxonomic groups, it is clear that understanding water-energy dynamics is critical to future biodiversity research. Analyses that do not include water-energy variables are missing a key component for explaining broad-scale patterns of diversity.
2,069 citations
Technische Universität München1, Australian National University2, Zoological Society of London3, American Museum of Natural History4, University of New South Wales5, Royal Botanic Gardens6, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center7, University of British Columbia8, University of Georgia9, Imperial College London10
TL;DR: The results show that the phylogenetic ‘fuses’ leading to the explosion of extant placental orders are not only very much longer than suspected previously, but also challenge the hypothesis that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event had a major, direct influence on the diversification of today’s mammals.
Abstract: Did the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, by eliminating non-avian dinosaurs and most of the existing fauna, trigger the evolutionary radiation of present-day mammals? Here we construct, date and analyse a species-level phylogeny of nearly all extant Mammalia to bring a new perspective to this question. Our analyses of how extant lineages accumulated through time show that net per-lineage diversification rates barely changed across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. Instead, these rates spiked significantly with the origins of the currently recognized placental superorders and orders approximately 93 million years ago, before falling and remaining low until accelerating again throughout the Eocene and Oligocene epochs. Our results show that the phylogenetic 'fuses' leading to the explosion of extant placental orders are not only very much longer than suspected previously, but also challenge the hypothesis that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event had a major, direct influence on the diversification of today's mammals.
1,994 citations