Cargando…
Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa
The enigmatic placozoans, which hold a key position in the metazoan Tree of Life, have attracted substantial attention in many areas of biological and biomedical research. While placozoans have become an emerging model system, their ecology and particularly biogeography remain widely unknown. In thi...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651326/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26580806 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140162 |
_version_ | 1782401621793177600 |
---|---|
author | Paknia, Omid Schierwater, Bernd |
author_facet | Paknia, Omid Schierwater, Bernd |
author_sort | Paknia, Omid |
collection | PubMed |
description | The enigmatic placozoans, which hold a key position in the metazoan Tree of Life, have attracted substantial attention in many areas of biological and biomedical research. While placozoans have become an emerging model system, their ecology and particularly biogeography remain widely unknown. In this study, we use modelling approaches to explore habitat preferences, and distribution pattern of the placozoans phylum. We provide hypotheses for discrete ecological niche separation between genetic placozoan lineages, which may also help to understand biogeography patterns in other small marine invertebrates. We, here, used maximum entropy modelling to predict placozoan distribution using 20 environmental grids of 9.2 km(2) resolution. In addition, we used recently developed metrics of niche overlap to compare habitat suitability models of three genetic clades. The predicted distributions range from 55°N to 44°S and are restricted to regions of intermediate to warm sea surface temperatures. High concentrations of salinity and low nutrient concentrations appear as secondary factors. Tests of niche equivalency reveal the largest differences between placozoan clades I and III. Interestingly, the genetically well-separated clades I and V appear to be ecologically very similar. Our habitat suitability models predict a wider latitudinal distribution for placozoans, than currently described, especially in the northern hemisphere. With respect to biogeography modelling, placozoans show patterns somewhere between higher metazoan taxa and marine microorganisms, with the first group usually showing complex biogeographies and the second usually showing “no biogeography.” |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4651326 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46513262015-11-25 Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa Paknia, Omid Schierwater, Bernd PLoS One Research Article The enigmatic placozoans, which hold a key position in the metazoan Tree of Life, have attracted substantial attention in many areas of biological and biomedical research. While placozoans have become an emerging model system, their ecology and particularly biogeography remain widely unknown. In this study, we use modelling approaches to explore habitat preferences, and distribution pattern of the placozoans phylum. We provide hypotheses for discrete ecological niche separation between genetic placozoan lineages, which may also help to understand biogeography patterns in other small marine invertebrates. We, here, used maximum entropy modelling to predict placozoan distribution using 20 environmental grids of 9.2 km(2) resolution. In addition, we used recently developed metrics of niche overlap to compare habitat suitability models of three genetic clades. The predicted distributions range from 55°N to 44°S and are restricted to regions of intermediate to warm sea surface temperatures. High concentrations of salinity and low nutrient concentrations appear as secondary factors. Tests of niche equivalency reveal the largest differences between placozoan clades I and III. Interestingly, the genetically well-separated clades I and V appear to be ecologically very similar. Our habitat suitability models predict a wider latitudinal distribution for placozoans, than currently described, especially in the northern hemisphere. With respect to biogeography modelling, placozoans show patterns somewhere between higher metazoan taxa and marine microorganisms, with the first group usually showing complex biogeographies and the second usually showing “no biogeography.” Public Library of Science 2015-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4651326/ /pubmed/26580806 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140162 Text en © 2015 Paknia, Schierwater http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Paknia, Omid Schierwater, Bernd Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title | Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title_full | Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title_fullStr | Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title_full_unstemmed | Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title_short | Global Habitat Suitability and Ecological Niche Separation in the Phylum Placozoa |
title_sort | global habitat suitability and ecological niche separation in the phylum placozoa |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651326/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26580806 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140162 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT pakniaomid globalhabitatsuitabilityandecologicalnicheseparationinthephylumplacozoa AT schierwaterbernd globalhabitatsuitabilityandecologicalnicheseparationinthephylumplacozoa |