{"title":"Climatic drivers of Sphagnum species distributions","authors":"C. Campbell","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg51146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg51146","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47966242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A framework linking biogeography and species traits to plant species vulnerability under global change in Mediterranean-type ecosystems","authors":"J. Franklin, H. Regan, A. Syphard","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg51254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg51254","url":null,"abstract":"We review the roles that plant species traits and biogeography play in species’ exposure and vulnerability to decline or extinction under global change, focusing on separate and combined impacts of multiple threats – climate change, land-use change, and altered disturbance regimes. We establish a conceptual framework and research agenda for identifying the spatial characteristics of species ranges, as well as the life history and functional traits, that are associated with extinction risk for plant species with functional attributes emblematic of fire-prone, winter-precipitation Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs). MTEs worldwide are characterized by their high plant diversity and unique floras, historical and contemporary high rates of land use change, and strong interactions between climate, fire, and land use. We focus on the California Floristic Province (CFP), an MTE that is a global plant diversity hotspot, and show how our framework can be used to understand the relationships between vulnerability to multiple global change drivers, species traits, and biogeography. Vulnerability can be assessed across species using linked distribution and population models that forecast plant responses to global change scenarios. Our overarching hypothesis is that species-specific vulnerability to global change in MTEs is a function of interactions between species and spatial traits: the nature of this interaction will depend on the type of global change process.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41468795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adriana C. Hernández‐Rojas, Jürgen Kluge, Sarah Noben, J. D. Reyes Chávez, T. Krömer, C. Carvajal-Hernández, L. Salazar, Michael Kessler
{"title":"Phylogenetic diversity of ferns reveals different patterns of niche conservatism and habitat filtering between epiphytic and terrestrial assemblages","authors":"Adriana C. Hernández‐Rojas, Jürgen Kluge, Sarah Noben, J. D. Reyes Chávez, T. Krömer, C. Carvajal-Hernández, L. Salazar, Michael Kessler","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg50023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg50023","url":null,"abstract":"Much attention has been directed to understanding species richness patterns, but adding an evolutionary perspective allows us to also consider the historical processes determining current diversity patterns. We analyzed phylogenetic patterns of fern species assemblages in 868 plots along a wide range of elevational (0-4000 m) and latitudinal (0°-23°N) gradients in the Neotropics to allow a deeper understanding of evolutionary processes underlying current patterns of diversity and community assembly. Overall, we found that phylogenetic mean pairwise distance (sMPD) and mean nearest taxon distance (sMNTD) decreased with increasing latitude and elevation, but that these geographical factors per se were weak explanatory variables. Incorporating environmental variables strongly enhanced the power of the predictive model, indicating that fern assemblages are phylogenetically more diverse under wet and warm to cool conditions at low latitudes and elevations. Further, whereas epiphytic fern assemblages were strongly influenced by climatic factors, this was not the case for terrestrial ones, suggesting that edaphic conditions and vegetation structure may have a stronger influence on the evolution and diversification of terrestrial ferns. We conclude that fern assemblages are strongly influenced by phylogenetic niche conservatism and environmental filtering. This has also been found for angiosperms, but the direction of the environment-phylogenetic relationship is often opposed in the two groups, suggesting that the older age of many fern lineages includes historical signals that are not evident in the more recent angiosperm radiation.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49362407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Chattopadhyay, Kritika M. Garg, D. P. Swami Doss, A. Vinothkumar, Sripathi Kandula, F. Rheindt, U. Ramakrishnan
{"title":"Cryptic diversity of Rhinolophus lepidus in South Asia and differentiation across a biogeographic barrier","authors":"B. Chattopadhyay, Kritika M. Garg, D. P. Swami Doss, A. Vinothkumar, Sripathi Kandula, F. Rheindt, U. Ramakrishnan","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg49625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg49625","url":null,"abstract":"volant mammals across the Palghat Gap. Abstract Peninsular India is an important region for mammalian diversification and harbors major biogeographic barriers. However, little is known about the role of this region in the diversification of bats though it harbors high chiropteran diversity. In this study, we used phenotypic, acoustic, and genetic markers to assess the diversification of Rhinolophus lepidus bats in South Asia. We first investigated if peninsular India is associated with speciation of R. lepidus . Further, we tested if the Palghat Gap acts as a biogeographic barrier to gene flow in this species. Our results revealed cryptic genetic diversity in peninsular India suggesting that this region holds at least one endemic species level lineage of the R. lepidus species complex. Analyses of populations of R. lepidus across the Palghat Gap in the Western Ghats revealed clinal variation in phenotype, with bats south of this barrier being bigger and emitting echolocation calls of higher frequency. We also observed that populations on either side of the Palghat Gap have","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47023580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Dewan, Bhoj Kumar Acharya, O. Vetaas, S. Ghatani
{"title":"Do sub-groups of butterflies display different elevational distribution patterns in the Eastern Himalaya, India?","authors":"S. Dewan, Bhoj Kumar Acharya, O. Vetaas, S. Ghatani","doi":"10.21425/F5FBG49643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG49643","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding the pattern of biodiversity along environmental gradients helps in identifying diversity hotspot areas that can be prioritized for conservation. While the elevational distribution of several taxa has been studied, responses of the sub-groups within a taxon to elevation and its associated factors are not properly understood. Here we study species richness and butterfly density along an elevation gradient in Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya, India and explore the underlying causes of the patterns. We sampled butterflies using a fixed-width point count method in 16 elevational bands (150–200 m intervals), between a range of 300 and 3300 m a.s.l. We categorized butterflies into various sub-groups based on family, range size, biogeographic affinity, and host-plant specialization. We recorded 3603 individuals and 253 species of butterflies after the completion of 1860 point counts. Overall, species richness in the majority of the sub-groups (except for Riodinidae and Palearctic species) declines with elevation, as does the density of almost all the sub-groups. From a selection of environmental factors, annual actual evapotranspiration has the strongest effect on the species richness pattern of butterflies as well as on the density of the overall butterfly community, especially the Lycaenidae family. The richness and density of butterfly groups display varied responses to the richness and density of trees and shrubs. The conducive climatic conditions and diverse habitats in the lower valleys of the Eastern Himalaya support a high diversity of butterflies (with majority of small range species) and thus warrants conservation attention.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49161007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Ngo, Huy Quoc Nguyen, T. Phan, T. Nguyen, L. R. Gewiss, D. Rödder, T. Ziegler
{"title":"Modeling the environmental refugia of the endangered Lichtenfelder’s Tiger Gecko (Goniurosaurus lichtenfelderi) towards implementation of transboundary conservation","authors":"H. Ngo, Huy Quoc Nguyen, T. Phan, T. Nguyen, L. R. Gewiss, D. Rödder, T. Ziegler","doi":"10.21425/F5FBG51167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG51167","url":null,"abstract":"Climate change has potential effects on global biodiversity by shifting the optimal distribution of terrestrial organisms, particularly species with narrow distributions. Goniurosaurus lichtenfelderi, a forest-dwelling lizard, is found on both the island and mainland sites of northern Vietnam and southern China. The species is categorized as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List and was recently listed in CITES Appendix II and the Vietnam Government’s Decree 06 in 2019 due to severe anthropogenic impacts on its populations. In this study, we employ Maxent species distribution modeling with climatic and vegetation cover data to identify the potential distribution of G. lichtenfelderi. We also used this approach to assess future climate impacts on the potential distribution under different climate change scenarios. Our model predicts that the potential distribution of G. lichtenfelderi will shrink significantly under future scenarios and even vanish in the entire study area under novel environmental conditions of the BCC-CSM 1-1 – RCP 8.5 scenario by the 2070s. Overall, the current potential distribution is expected to shift towards higher latitudes within the next decades. The forecasted maps provide useful guidelines to implement conservation strategies to mitigate synergistic impacts from climate change and other negative anthropogenic activities. In the context of the potentially severe impacts, the border areas between China and Vietnam, Yen Tu Mountain Range, Bai Tu Long National Park, and their surroundings should be considered core refugia for the species, where conservation measures need to be prioritized in the future.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48173051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Marshall, Daniel V. Latorre, Connor J. Wilson, T. Frank, K. Magoulick, Joshua P. Zimmt, Ashley W. Poust
{"title":"With what precision can the population size of Tyrannosaurus rex be estimated? A reply to Meiri","authors":"C. Marshall, Daniel V. Latorre, Connor J. Wilson, T. Frank, K. Magoulick, Joshua P. Zimmt, Ashley W. Poust","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg55042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg55042","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48343448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. Kühn, C. Tovar, J. Carretero, V. Vandvik, B. Enquist, K. Willis
{"title":"Globally important plant functional traits for coping with climate change","authors":"N. Kühn, C. Tovar, J. Carretero, V. Vandvik, B. Enquist, K. Willis","doi":"10.21425/f5fbg53774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg53774","url":null,"abstract":"The last decade has seen a proliferation of studies that use plant functional traits to assess how plants respond to climate change. However, it remains unclear whether there is a global set of traits that can predict plants’ ability to cope or even thrive when exposed to varying manifestations of climate change. We conducted a systematic global review which identified 148 studies to assess whether there is a set of common traits across biomes that best predict positive plant responses to multiple climate changes and associated environmental changes. Eight key traits appear to best predict positive plant responses to multiple climate/environmental changes across biomes: lower or higher specific leaf area (SLA), lower or higher plant height, greater water-use efficiency (WUE), greater resprouting ability, lower relative growth rate, greater clonality/bud banks/below-ground storage, higher wood density, and greater rooting depth. Trait attributes associated with positive responses appear relatively consistent within biomes and climate/environmental changes, except for SLA and plant height, where both lower and higher trait attributes are associated with a positive response depending on the biome and climate/environmental change considered. Overall, our findings illustrate important and general trait-climate responses within and between biomes that help us understand which plant phenotypes may cope with or thrive under current and future climate change.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44439403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Eibes, J. Eisenbacher, C. Beierkuhnlein, A. Chiarucci, Richard Field, A. Jentsch, Tina Köhler, O. Vetaas, S. D. Irl
{"title":"Co-occurrence frequency in vegetation patches decreases towards the harsh edge along an arid volcanic elevational gradient","authors":"P. Eibes, J. Eisenbacher, C. Beierkuhnlein, A. Chiarucci, Richard Field, A. Jentsch, Tina Köhler, O. Vetaas, S. D. Irl","doi":"10.21425/F5FBG49743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG49743","url":null,"abstract":"Positive plant–plant interactions are thought to drive vegetation patterns in harsh environments, such as semi-arid areas. According to the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), the role of positive interactions between species (facilitation) is expected to increase with harshness, predicting associated variation in species composition along environmental gradients. However, the relation between stress and facilitation along environmental gradients is debated. Furthermore, differentiating facilitative interactions from other underlying mechanisms, such as microtopographic heterogeneity, is not trivial. We analysed the spatial co-occurrence relationships of vascular plant species that form patchy vegetation in arid lapilli fields (tephra) from recent volcanic eruptions on La Palma, Canary Islands. Assuming a harshness gradient negatively correlated with elevation because the lower elevations are more arid and water availability is considered the most limiting resource, and that an outcome of facilitation is plants co-occurring in the same patch, from the SGH we expected a greater degree of co-occurrence at lower elevation. We tested this at both the species and the individual plant level. We analysed the species composition of 1277 shrubby vegetation patches at 64 different sampling points, ranging from the coast to around 700 m a.s.l. Patch morphology and microtopographic heterogeneity variables were also measured, to account for their potential effects on the species composition of patches. We used generalized linear models and generalized mixed-effects models to analyse species richness, number of individuals in patches and percentage of patches with positive co-occurrences, and a pairwise co-occurrence analysis combined with a graphical network analysis to reveal positive links between 13 of the species. We found that the percentage of patches with positive co-occurrences increased at higher elevations, in contrast to the predictions of the SGH, but in accordance with a refined stress-gradient hypothesis for arid sites, in which characteristics of the interacting species are incorporated.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47909726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Blair, Peter J. Galante, Tu Bao Ngan, L. Cong, Nguyen Quang Hieu
{"title":"Climate change threatens the conservation of one of the world’s most endangered transboundary tree species: Magnolia grandis","authors":"M. Blair, Peter J. Galante, Tu Bao Ngan, L. Cong, Nguyen Quang Hieu","doi":"10.21425/F5FBG51059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG51059","url":null,"abstract":"The Sino-Vietnamese border region is known for having unique and high levels of biodiversity. Global climate change is expected to alter the region’s climate and related changes in habitats and ecosystems will result in shifts in species’ distributions and increase the likelihood of local and global extinctions. Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) are widely used to predict the magnitude of potential species distribution shifts in response to climate change and inform conservation planning. Here, we present climate-based ENM projections of future climatically suitable habitat for the Daguo Mulian tree (Magnolia grandis), a critically endangered species of high ecological and cultural value in the Sino-Vietnamese border region. Projections of modeled climatically suitable habitat for M. grandis, both for the 2050s and 2070s, suggest significant habitat loss within conservation areas, and a defining shift in the location of suitable habitat. Future projections are conservative and do not account for dispersal limitations or species interactions or other factors, and thus may overestimate potential shifts and underestimate losses. Our results suggest that current conservation management efforts for M. grandis, which include community forest conservation monitoring combined with nursery cultivation efforts, can continue to have success if implemented in an adaptive management framework with long-term research and monitoring to inform forward-thinking decisions with future climatic suitability in mind. The results also underline how endangered species’ distributions may shift across borders as they track suitable climates, emphasizing that nations will need to cooperate to effectively manage threatened species and habitats and prevent extinctions.","PeriodicalId":37788,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers of Biogeography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49161040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}