Ecography最新文献

{"title":"Spatially heterogenous range dynamics since the Last Glacial Maximum underpin the modern bimodal latitudinal diversity gradient in planktonic foraminifera","authors":"Tasnuva Ming Khan, Marina C. Rillo, Lukas Jonkers, Isaiah E. Smith, Ádám T. Kocsis, Wolfgang Kiessling","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08661","url":null,"abstract":"The modern latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) of planktonic foraminifera is bimodal, with a distinct depression near the equator surrounded by mid‐latitude diversity peaks. This pattern emerged after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 19–23 ka), but it remains unclear how species' spatial dynamics contributed to its formation. Here, we investigate how species range dynamics, namely trailing‐edge contractions (extirpations) and leading‐edge expansions (colonisations), shaped the modern bimodal pattern. We analysed taxonomically standardized LGM and modern foraminiferal assemblage datasets to characterize changes in species diversity at multiple spatial scales, from the global ocean to within basins. We quantified species' range shifts and estimated site‐level richness change, temporal turnover, and the net imbalance between colonisations and extirpations (NICE). We found no evidence of systematic trailing edge contractions, indicating that equatorial extirpations did not generate the bimodal LDG. Instead, leading‐edge expansions were evident in the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting that the modern bimodal LDG of planktonic foraminifera arose primarily through mid‐latitude colonisations. In the Pacific Ocean, however, biodiversity changes were highly spatially heterogeneous. Given the overall warming trend since the LGM, we expected cold‐adapted species to be at greater risk of local extinction; consistent with this expectation, species' thermal optima weakly predicted the number of extirpations. Together, our findings show that climate‐driven biodiversity change can arise from spatially heterogeneous, species‐specific range dynamics, with important implications for monitoring and protecting marine biodiversity.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149150738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reduced size of larvae and small fish linked to warming and reduced prey density","authors":"Max Lindmark, Malin Werner, Peter Thor, Federico Maioli, Eros Quesada, Valerio Bartolino, Philip Jacobson","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08354","url":null,"abstract":"Body size is an integrative trait that has declined across many ecological assemblages in the last decades. Changes in body size of early life stages and small‐bodied fish are driven by complex interactions between size‐dependent mortality, and temperature‐ and food‐dependent growth, and can have consequences for recruitment to the adult stock and food availability to predators. While the mechanisms can be difficult to disentangle using observational data alone, simple indicators such as mean size can provide important information about ecosystem conditions as oceans rapidly change. Using 30 years of observations from a long‐term ichthyoplankton survey in Skagerrak and Kattegat in combination with sea surface temperature data, we investigated changes in the body size of early life stages and small‐bodied fishes for 10 commercial and non‐commercial species using geostatistical mixed models, and trends in prey density using generalized additive models. We found positive associations between chlorophyll‐a concentration and length in 8 species (3 significant), and negative associations between temperature and length in 9 species (4 significant). Standardized indices of length revealed negative trends over time for all species since 2010, and all species were smaller in 2024 compared to 2000. The decline in size since 2010 varied between 30 and 1%, with a mean of 14 and 9% for species predominantly found in Skagerrak and Kattegat, respectively. The trend of decreased body sizes since 2010 coincides with rapid declines in <jats:italic>Calanus</jats:italic> spp., which constitute a key prey that is also predicted to decline in this range‐edge area due to climate change. In Skagerrak it also coincides with a decline in the density of other calanoid copepods larger than 0.25 mm. The synchronous declines in larval size across taxonomically diverse species experiencing different rates of exploitation suggest a common response to changing environmental conditions, which could have cascading effects throughout marine food webs.","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149150739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Thermal niche breadth shapes regional elevational range sizes of tropical-like mountain stream insects: evidence for Janzen's tropical mountain passes hypothesis","authors":"Tingting Zhou,&nbsp;Ramiro Martín- Devasa,&nbsp;Xiaodan Chen,&nbsp;Haojie Wang,&nbsp;Yuxin Tan,&nbsp;Zhifa Liu,&nbsp;Bo-Ping Han,&nbsp;Lu Wang,&nbsp;Zhenyuan Liu,&nbsp;Janne Soininen","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08715","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08715","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The core of Janzen's tropical mountain passes hypothesis is that relatively stable annual temperature variation limits species' thermal tolerances breadth, which, in combination with steep elevational temperature gradients, constrains the elevational distributions of these species. In addition to thermal niche breadth, elevational ranges were shaped by species' position in thermal niche space, ecological dominance (local abundance), and functional traits. However, the relative importance of these factors and the pathways through which they jointly influence elevational ranges remain unclear. Here, we explored the determinants of regional elevational ranges of stream insects across 52 non-disturbed reaches along a 1400 m elevational gradient in tropical-like Nanling Mountain, South China. We used phylogenetic linear regression and relevant hierarchical partitioning to determine the relative roles of niche characteristics, local abundance and functional traits, while controlling for phylogenetic effects. Environmental niches were divided into thermal and local habitat components, with their breadth and position quantified. We then performed piecewise structural equation modeling (SEM) to quantify the pathways through which niche characteristics influence local abundance and elevational ranges. We found that elevational ranges were positively associated with local abundance and niche breadth, but negatively associated with niche position. Phylogenetic hierarchical partitioning showed that niche characteristics were the primary drivers of elevational ranges, with thermal niche breadth being the most important driver. SEM analyses revealed that thermal niche breadth and position were the primary direct driver of elevational ranges, with its indirect effect mediated by local abundance being comparatively minor. Overall, our results provide support for Janzen's hypothesis in a tropical-like mountain stream system, revealing that thermal niche breadth is a primary driver of elevational ranges. This finding suggests that stream insects in these tropical-like climates are sensitive to climate change due to their narrower thermal tolerance and limited distributions, and should be conservation priorities as warming accelerates.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08715","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microclimate mediates the strength and direction of avian biotic interactions","authors":"Sarah J. K. Frey,&nbsp;Brian D. Gerber,&nbsp;Adam S. Hadley,&nbsp;Hankyu Kim,&nbsp;Madison Sutton,&nbsp;Nina C. Ferrari,&nbsp;Matthew G. Betts","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08313","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08313","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Theory predicts that the strength and direction of species interactions can shift from being competitive in benign environments toward being facilitative in stressful environments. However, the environmental context dependency of species interactions has rarely been tested in animal communities. We capitalized on a 15-year, landscape-scale dataset, collected annually in a relatively stable old-growth forest environment, to test the long-held hypothesis that the strength and direction of species interactions might be mediated by climatic conditions. It is generally accepted that competitive and facilitative interactions drive the distributions of many species, but are rarely included in climate envelope models, and may partly explain poor predictive performance of species distribution models in the face of climate change. Using multi-species dynamic occupancy models applied to long-term data, we tested whether annual settlement by bird species could affect either the persistence or settlement by other phylogenetically related species, and whether these interactions are mediated by microclimate. We found that species interactions were influenced by microclimate for a high proportion of species pairs (80%). Related species pairs more often showed settlement dynamics that were indicative of attraction rather than repulsion (55 versus 30%, respectively). In some cases, competitive interactions in colder microclimates flipped to become facilitative in warmer ones (15%) and vice versa (5%). Furthermore, species pairs that were closely related were more likely to exhibit competitive relationships along at least part of the microclimatic gradient. Our results highlight the importance of using long-term data to incorporate competitive and facilitative interactions into species distribution models, and support the notion that the strength and direction of species interactions can be dependent on microclimatic conditions.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08313","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148729212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wolves and humans both shape patterns of deer browsing in a temperate forest ecosystem of Central Europe","authors":"Walter Di Nicola,&nbsp;Henrich Maik,&nbsp;Hannah Pepe,&nbsp;Marc Velling,&nbsp;Ye Htet Lwin,&nbsp;Suzanne T. S. van Beeck Calkoen,&nbsp;Vorel Ales,&nbsp;Chris Smit,&nbsp;Dries Kuijper,&nbsp;Marco Heurich","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08726","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08726","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Predator–prey interactions can trigger behavioural responses in ungulates, influencing their space-use and foraging behaviour and, in turn, indirectly affecting browsing pressure. Changes in browsing pressure can affect plant recruitment and species composition, shaping forest regeneration through predator-mediated trophic cascades. Despite ecological significance, the extent to which predators indirectly affect browsing remains debated, particularly in anthropogenic landscapes where human impacts can interact with predator effects.</p><p>In this study, we investigated interactions across trophic guilds and their consequences for ungulate browsing pressure while accounting for human lethal and non-lethal activities. Human disturbance was quantified using surveys of recreational activities and hunting locations. Wolf space-use and kill-sites density were mapped from GPS telemetry; lynx and red and roe deer density was modelled from camera trap data. To monitor vegetation change, browsing pressure was assessed through landscape-scale field surveys in two years: before and after wolf establishment. All datasets were modelled to evaluate tri-trophic interactions in the Bavarian Forest National Park (Germany).</p><p>On the landscape-scale, browsing pressure was lower in the core of wolf territories and areas with higher human recreation intensity, whereas deer relative abundance was not lower in these areas. In contrast, browsing pressure was greater in areas with higher lynx activity and higher wolf kill-sites density. Comparison of browsing data before and after wolf establishment indicated that wolf recolonisation locally altered deer browsing patterns but did not affect overall browsing intensity. Overall browsing intensity increased across the park but declined within areas of high wolf utilisation density.</p><p>By analysing tri-trophic interactions incorporating human activities, this study provides field-based insights into trophic interactions in a temperate forest ecosystem. Results indicate that returning predators can resume their ecological functions within anthropogenic landscapes, with wolf effects on lower trophic levels comparable in strength to those of humans in shaping ungulate browsing patterns.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08726","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149020003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Responses of Antarctic seabird populations to past climate change","authors":"Elize Y. X. Ng,&nbsp;Louise Emmerson,&nbsp;Barbara Wienecke,&nbsp;Fabiola León Miranda,&nbsp;Colin Southwell,&nbsp;Juliana A. Vianna,&nbsp;Christopher P. Burridge","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08322","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08322","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Higher-order predators such as Antarctic seabirds serve as ecological indicators of environmental change and provide a crucial trophic link between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Despite their prevalence and significance in the Antarctic ecosystem, there is a lack of understanding of the impacts of major regime shifts in paleoclimate on flighted Antarctic seabirds. We address this by reconstructing demographic histories using complete genomes of six flighted seabirds and two penguin species, each with distinct habitat requirements and life histories in East Antarctica. We evaluated changes in species abundance in relation to major environmental shifts after 10 Mya, including previously inferred Antarctic krill abundance. We demonstrated that four fulmarine petrel species increased during periods of paleoclimatic cooling (10 Mya to 500 kya) and prior to krill population increases, potentially reflecting earlier use of alternative prey. Fulmarine petrels increased more rapidly than Adélie and emperor penguins, likely reflecting their greater ability to exploit resources through flight. Differing from all other species, demographic histories of south polar skua and Wilson's storm-petrel exhibited long periods of decline, and these may reflect physiological constraints or may be confounded by aspects of their evolutionary history (e.g. recent speciation and colonisation of Antarctica). Overall, our results indicate a degree of predictability in species' responses to past climate change. With most species requiring ice-free breeding areas, the predominant observation of increases in predator abundance across a background of climatic cooling suggests that future increases in ice-free areas for breeding may not offset negative impacts from any declines in prey.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08322","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148809906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Future warming enhances rates of population increase of arthropod crop pests globally","authors":"Darío San-Segundo Molina,&nbsp;Ignacio Morales-Castilla,&nbsp;Sara Villén-Pérez","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08568","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08568","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Arthropod herbivores cause severe crop yield losses worldwide. Global warming is expected to shift their ranges, phenologies and performances, highlighting the need for improved forecasts of their potential expansion and impacts on food security. After decades of experimental research on thermal biology of arthropod crop pests, available data and tools now allow to model their temperature-dependent population growth (i.e. population-level thermal performance curves, or TPCs), which approximate their fundamental thermal niches. Thermal limits of these TPCs can inform biogeographic predictions on latitudinal adaptation to cold and heat, while TPC predictions for population growth rates help assess whether warming will benefit or constrain pest populations. We compiled a dataset on the thermal biology of arthropod crop pests and fitted TPCs to examine the projected shifts in performance under historic and future climates relative to their thermal niches, which were examined through modelling the latitudinal variation of their population-level thermal limits. Our findings highlight that most arthropod crop pests are projected to increase their thermal potential for population growth under warming by 2050, with temperate populations retaining room to grow but tropical populations increasingly exposed to heat stress. These findings can be explained by the asymmetric variation of thermal niche limits for these intrinsic rates of population increase, since we found that lower thermal limits declined with latitude, while upper thermal limits remained constant.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08568","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148979689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modeling climate adaptive habitat connectivity for conservation planning in Colombia","authors":"Lei Song,&nbsp;Amy E. Frazier,&nbsp;Patrick R. Roehrdanz,&nbsp;Wenxin Yang,&nbsp;Joana M. Krieger,&nbsp;Nickolas McManus,&nbsp;Elkin A. Noguera- Urbano,&nbsp;Susana Rodriguez- Buritica,&nbsp;Dan Willett","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08789","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08789","url":null,"abstract":"<p>To remain effective under global change, conservation decisions must anticipate shifting climates, species responses to climate change and the dispersal pathways needed to track suitable climate. Yet most assessments of ecological connectivity do not consider how the landscape will change, or, if they do, they only consider a single future time point, which may miss key intermediate states and stepwise pathways for climate-driven dispersal. We develop and apply a trajectory-based, climate adaptive connectivity framework for 294 terrestrial mammals in Colombia that are projected to retain accessible future habitat. Here, climate adaptive connectivity refers to potential connectivity driven by changing climatic suitability across time. We replicated expert-validated species distribution models (SDMs) from BioModelos to estimate baseline and future habitat suitability (1970–2000; 2021–2040, 2041–2060, 2061–2080, 2081–2100) under three scenarios (SSP126, SSP370, SSP585). For each species, we ran omnidirectional circuit theory connectivity models (Omniscape) with species-specific dispersal distances and habitat suitability-based conductance surface. We projected connectivity across multiple future time steps and then accumulated the resulting connectivity values at each endpoint. This multi-step assessment revealed transient connectivity barriers in central Colombia that repeatedly disrupt potential climate-tracking pathways but are missed by endpoint-only assessments. We then classified the aggregated connectivity of all species into operational types representing different modes of climate connectivity support to inform national action. Under SSP126, areas supporting and impeding connectivity interlace and cluster in northwestern Colombia, likely reflecting Andean climatic gradients, and remain relatively stable. Under higher emissions, well-connected zones contract toward the Andes and barrier hotspots shift, indicating that a central hotspot linking the Colombian Amazon and Andes may transition from facilitator to barrier. Compared with endpoint-only single-step assessments, our multi-step approach reveals transient yet essential linkages that emerge during intermediate periods and may otherwise be missed, providing actionable guidance on both land protection and restoration.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08789","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Asymmetric species turnover underpins the latitudinal diversity gradient in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot of India","authors":"Rohitashva Shukla,&nbsp;Vidyadhar Atkore,&nbsp;Anuradha Bhat,&nbsp;Neelesh Dahanukar,&nbsp;Jeyaraj Antony Johnson,&nbsp;Rajeev Raghavan,&nbsp;Maria Dornelas,&nbsp;Kartik Shanker,&nbsp;Anne E. Magurran","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08538","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08538","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs), namely an increase in species richness from higher to lower latitudes, are one of ecology's best documented patterns, yet how the fundamental components of compositional mismatches (i.e. species gains and losses along a gradient) explain these patterns remains poorly understood. As we argue here, one of two alternative turnover scenarios must apply to a typical latitudinal richness gradient. Such gradients can be the product of either a scenario where both species gains and losses are correlated and increase with geographical distance, or of uncorrelated change where species gains increase with distance, but losses remain constant. We distinguish between these alternatives using the freshwater fish communities of the Western Ghats of India, a biodiversity hotspot with a strong latitudinal species richness gradient. We find that the uncorrelated change scenario prevails for both taxonomic and functional diversity, and on both the western and eastern slopes of the mountain range, albeit with subtle differences. Our results suggest that these uncorrelated changes result from high nestedness among communities and reflect the dominance of dispersal processes in the region. As the observed pattern arises due to an increase in range-restricted species at lower latitudes, it is consistent with Rapoport's rule. Partitioning species turnover into its gain and loss components thus helps explain the mechanisms underlying latitudinal gradients of diversity, and informs our understanding of biodiversity change.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08538","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149020002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phylogenetic structure of conifers in regional floras in relation to climate and environmental heterogeneity worldwide","authors":"Hong Qian,&nbsp;Michael Kessler,&nbsp;Shenhua Qian","doi":"10.1002/ecog.08385","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ecog.08385","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite having only about 670 species worldwide, conifers are one of the ecologically and economically most important plant groups. They have a rich fossil record and previous studies have shown that their current diversity is the result of past radiations, extinction, and dispersal events, restricting many genera to either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, and concentrating species richness in specific regions. However, it remains poorly explored how this translates into patterns of phylogenetic diversity. In this study, we used a species-level megaphylogeny and species lists for 391 geographic units worldwide to calculate six metrics of phylogenetic diversity and disparity, and to relate these to climatic factors. We found that the different metrics provided different patterns, reflecting deep and shallow evolutionary history, but that overall southeastern China had the highest values. We also found that patterns of phylogenetic diversity and disparity were better explained by current than historical climate, by temperature- than precipitation-related variables, and by climatic seasonality than by climatic extremes. These patterns differ in many important regards from those known from ferns and angiosperms. Most notably, species-poor conifer assemblages tend to have high phylogenetic dispersion, being composed of few species belonging to distinct lineages, rather than few lineages with many species each, as is typical for ferns and angiosperms. We conclude that the ecological and evolutionary processes determining community assembly in conifers differ fundamentally from those seen in ferns and angiosperms, reflecting their low global species richness.</p>","PeriodicalId":51026,"journal":{"name":"Ecography","volume":"2026 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecog.08385","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148717610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}