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Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition
Co‐dependent geological and climatic changes obscure how species interact in deep time. The interplay between these environmental factors makes it hard to discern whether ecological competition exerts an upper limit on species richness. Here, using the exceptional fossil record of Cenozoic Era macro...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4999050/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27278857 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12626 |
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author | Ezard, Thomas H. G. Purvis, Andy |
author_facet | Ezard, Thomas H. G. Purvis, Andy |
author_sort | Ezard, Thomas H. G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Co‐dependent geological and climatic changes obscure how species interact in deep time. The interplay between these environmental factors makes it hard to discern whether ecological competition exerts an upper limit on species richness. Here, using the exceptional fossil record of Cenozoic Era macroperforate planktonic foraminifera, we assess the evidence for alternative modes of macroevolutionary competition. Our models support an environmentally dependent macroevolutionary form of contest competition that yields finite upper bounds on species richness. Models of biotic competition assuming unchanging environmental conditions were overwhelmingly rejected. In the best‐supported model, temperature affects the per‐lineage diversification rate, while both temperature and an environmental driver of sediment accumulation defines the upper limit. The support for contest competition implies that incumbency constrains species richness by restricting niche availability, and that the number of macroevolutionary niches varies as a function of environmental changes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4999050 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49990502016-09-13 Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition Ezard, Thomas H. G. Purvis, Andy Ecol Lett Letters Co‐dependent geological and climatic changes obscure how species interact in deep time. The interplay between these environmental factors makes it hard to discern whether ecological competition exerts an upper limit on species richness. Here, using the exceptional fossil record of Cenozoic Era macroperforate planktonic foraminifera, we assess the evidence for alternative modes of macroevolutionary competition. Our models support an environmentally dependent macroevolutionary form of contest competition that yields finite upper bounds on species richness. Models of biotic competition assuming unchanging environmental conditions were overwhelmingly rejected. In the best‐supported model, temperature affects the per‐lineage diversification rate, while both temperature and an environmental driver of sediment accumulation defines the upper limit. The support for contest competition implies that incumbency constrains species richness by restricting niche availability, and that the number of macroevolutionary niches varies as a function of environmental changes. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2016-06-09 2016-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4999050/ /pubmed/27278857 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12626 Text en © 2016 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by CNRS and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Letters Ezard, Thomas H. G. Purvis, Andy Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title | Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title_full | Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title_fullStr | Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title_full_unstemmed | Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title_short | Environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
title_sort | environmental changes define ecological limits to species richness and reveal the mode of macroevolutionary competition |
topic | Letters |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4999050/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27278857 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12626 |
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