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Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa

Macroevolutionary patterns, often inferred from metrics of community relatedness, are often used to ascertain major evolutionary processes shaping communities. These patterns have been shown to be informative of biogeographic barriers, of habitat suitability and invasibility (especially with regard...

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Autores principales: Cooper, Jacob C., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., Ferguson, Adam W., Bates, John M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8941498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35356571
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8752
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author Cooper, Jacob C.
Crouch, Nicholas M. A.
Ferguson, Adam W.
Bates, John M.
author_facet Cooper, Jacob C.
Crouch, Nicholas M. A.
Ferguson, Adam W.
Bates, John M.
author_sort Cooper, Jacob C.
collection PubMed
description Macroevolutionary patterns, often inferred from metrics of community relatedness, are often used to ascertain major evolutionary processes shaping communities. These patterns have been shown to be informative of biogeographic barriers, of habitat suitability and invasibility (especially with regard to environmental filtering), and of regions that function as evolutionary cradles (i.e., sources of diversification) or museums (i.e., regions of reduced extinction). Here, we analyzed continental datasets of mammal and bird distributions to identify primary drivers of community evolution on the African continent for mostly endothermic vertebrates. We find that underdispersion (i.e., relatively low phylogenetic diversity compared to species richness) closely correlates with specific ecoregions that have been identified as climatic refugia in the literature, regardless of whether these specific regions have been touted as cradles or museums. Using theoretical models of identical communities that differ only with respect to extinction rates, we find that even small suppressions of extinction rates can result in underdispersed communities, supporting the hypothesis that climatic stability can lead to underdispersion. We posit that large‐scale patterns of under‐ and overdispersion between regions of similar species richness are more reflective of a particular region’s extinction potential, and that the very nature of refugia can lead to underdispersion via the steady accumulation of species richness through diversification within the same ecoregion during climatic cycles. Thus, patterns of environmental filtering can be obfuscated by environments that coincide with biogeographic refugia, and considerations of regional biogeographic history are paramount for inferring macroevolutionary processes.
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spelling pubmed-89414982022-03-29 Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa Cooper, Jacob C. Crouch, Nicholas M. A. Ferguson, Adam W. Bates, John M. Ecol Evol Research Articles Macroevolutionary patterns, often inferred from metrics of community relatedness, are often used to ascertain major evolutionary processes shaping communities. These patterns have been shown to be informative of biogeographic barriers, of habitat suitability and invasibility (especially with regard to environmental filtering), and of regions that function as evolutionary cradles (i.e., sources of diversification) or museums (i.e., regions of reduced extinction). Here, we analyzed continental datasets of mammal and bird distributions to identify primary drivers of community evolution on the African continent for mostly endothermic vertebrates. We find that underdispersion (i.e., relatively low phylogenetic diversity compared to species richness) closely correlates with specific ecoregions that have been identified as climatic refugia in the literature, regardless of whether these specific regions have been touted as cradles or museums. Using theoretical models of identical communities that differ only with respect to extinction rates, we find that even small suppressions of extinction rates can result in underdispersed communities, supporting the hypothesis that climatic stability can lead to underdispersion. We posit that large‐scale patterns of under‐ and overdispersion between regions of similar species richness are more reflective of a particular region’s extinction potential, and that the very nature of refugia can lead to underdispersion via the steady accumulation of species richness through diversification within the same ecoregion during climatic cycles. Thus, patterns of environmental filtering can be obfuscated by environments that coincide with biogeographic refugia, and considerations of regional biogeographic history are paramount for inferring macroevolutionary processes. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-03-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8941498/ /pubmed/35356571 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8752 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Cooper, Jacob C.
Crouch, Nicholas M. A.
Ferguson, Adam W.
Bates, John M.
Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title_full Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title_fullStr Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title_full_unstemmed Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title_short Climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in Africa
title_sort climatic refugia and reduced extinction correlate with underdispersion in mammals and birds in africa
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8941498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35356571
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8752
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