Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages

Global change has already had observable effects on ecosystems worldwide, and the accelerated rate of global change is predicted in the future. However, the impacts of global change on the stability of biodiversity have not been systematically studied in terms of both large spatial (continental drif...

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Autores principales: Li, Fengqing, Tierno de Figueroa, José Manuel, Lek, Sovan, Park, Young-Seuk
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469969/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26081036
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11343
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author Li, Fengqing
Tierno de Figueroa, José Manuel
Lek, Sovan
Park, Young-Seuk
author_facet Li, Fengqing
Tierno de Figueroa, José Manuel
Lek, Sovan
Park, Young-Seuk
author_sort Li, Fengqing
collection PubMed
description Global change has already had observable effects on ecosystems worldwide, and the accelerated rate of global change is predicted in the future. However, the impacts of global change on the stability of biodiversity have not been systematically studied in terms of both large spatial (continental drift) and temporal (from the last inter-glacial period to the next century) scales. Therefore, we analyzed the current geographical distribution pattern of Plecoptera, a thermally sensitive insect group, and evaluated its stability when coping with global change across both space and time throughout the Mediterranean region—one of the first 25 global biodiversity hotspots. Regional biodiversity of Plecoptera reflected the geography in both the historical movements of continents and the current environmental conditions in the western Mediterranean region. The similarity of Plecoptera assemblages between areas in this region indicated that the uplift of new land and continental drift were the primary determinants of the stability of regional biodiversity. Our results revealed that climate change caused the biodiversity of Plecoptera to slowly diminish in the past and will cause remarkably accelerated biodiversity loss in the future. These findings support the theory that climate change has had its greatest impact on biodiversity over a long temporal scale.
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spelling pubmed-44699692015-06-18 Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages Li, Fengqing Tierno de Figueroa, José Manuel Lek, Sovan Park, Young-Seuk Sci Rep Article Global change has already had observable effects on ecosystems worldwide, and the accelerated rate of global change is predicted in the future. However, the impacts of global change on the stability of biodiversity have not been systematically studied in terms of both large spatial (continental drift) and temporal (from the last inter-glacial period to the next century) scales. Therefore, we analyzed the current geographical distribution pattern of Plecoptera, a thermally sensitive insect group, and evaluated its stability when coping with global change across both space and time throughout the Mediterranean region—one of the first 25 global biodiversity hotspots. Regional biodiversity of Plecoptera reflected the geography in both the historical movements of continents and the current environmental conditions in the western Mediterranean region. The similarity of Plecoptera assemblages between areas in this region indicated that the uplift of new land and continental drift were the primary determinants of the stability of regional biodiversity. Our results revealed that climate change caused the biodiversity of Plecoptera to slowly diminish in the past and will cause remarkably accelerated biodiversity loss in the future. These findings support the theory that climate change has had its greatest impact on biodiversity over a long temporal scale. Nature Publishing Group 2015-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4469969/ /pubmed/26081036 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11343 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Li, Fengqing
Tierno de Figueroa, José Manuel
Lek, Sovan
Park, Young-Seuk
Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title_full Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title_fullStr Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title_full_unstemmed Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title_short Continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
title_sort continental drift and climate change drive instability in insect assemblages
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4469969/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26081036
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11343
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