This dataset provides the Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database, version 1.2. GloNAF represents a data compendium on the occurrence and identity of naturalized alien vascular plant taxa across geographic regions (e.g. countries, states, provinces, districts, islands) around the globe. The dataset includes 13,939 taxa and covers 1,029 regions (including 381 islands). The dataset is based on 210 data sources. For each taxon‐by‐region combination, we provide information on whether the taxon is considered to be naturalized in the specific region (i.e. has established self‐sustaining populations in the wild). Non‐native taxa are marked as “alien”, when it is not clear whether they are naturalized. To facilitate alignment with other plant databases, we provide for each taxon the name as given in the original data source and the standardized taxon and family names used by The Plant List Version 1.1 (http://www.theplantlist.org/). We provide an ESRI shapefile including polygons for each region and information on whether it is an island or a mainland region, the country and the Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) regions it is part of (TDWG levels 1–4). We also provide several variables that can be used to filter the data according to quality and completeness of alien taxon lists, which vary among the combinations of regions and data sources. A previous version of the GloNAF dataset (version 1.1) has already been used in several studies on, for example, historical spatial flows of taxa between continents and geographical patterns and determinants of naturalization across different taxonomic groups. We intend the updated and expanded GloNAF version presented here to be a global resource useful for studying plant invasions and changes in biodiversity from regional to global scales. We release these data into the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero license waiver (https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/). When you use the data in your publication, we request that you cite this data paper. If GloNAF is a major part of the data analyzed in your study, you should consider inviting the GloNAF core team (see Metadata S1: Originators in the Overall project description) as collaborators. If you plan to use the GloNAF dataset, we encourage you to contact the GloNAF core team to check whether there have been recent updates of the dataset, and whether similar analyses are already ongoing.
Sympatric speciation has been controversial since it was first proposed as a mode of speciation. Subterranean blind mole rats (Spalacidae) are considered to speciate allopatrically or peripatrically. Here, we report a possible incipient sympatric adaptive ecological speciation in Spalax galili (2n = 52). The study microsite (0.04 km 2 ) is sharply subdivided geologically, edaphically, and ecologically into abutting barrier-free ecologies divergent in rock, soil, and vegetation types. The Pleistocene Alma basalt abuts the Cretaceous Senonian Kerem Ben Zimra chalk. Only 28% of 112 plant species were shared between the soils. We examined mitochondrial DNA in the control region and ATP6 in 28 mole rats from basalt and in 14 from chalk habitats. We also sequenced the complete mtDNA (16,423 bp) of four animals, two from each soil type. Remarkably, the frequency of all major haplotype clusters (HC) was highly soil-biased. HCI and HCII are chalk biased. HC-III was abundant in basalt (36%) but absent in chalk; HC-IV was prevalent in basalt (46.5%) but was low (20%) in chalk. Up to 40% of the mtDNA diversity was edaphically dependent, suggesting constrained gene flow. We identified a homologous recombinant mtDNA in the basalt/chalk studied area. Phenotypically significant divergences differentiate the two populations, inhabiting different soils, in adaptive oxygen consumption and in the amount of outsidenest activity. This identification of a possible incipient sympatric adaptive ecological speciation caused by natural selection indirectly refutes the allopatric alternative. Sympatric ecological speciation may be more prevalent in nature because of abundant and sharply abutting divergent ecologies.adaptation | ecological stress | radio-tracking | metabolism | microscale T he origin and nature of species, the mystery of mysteries (1) and "the most important single event in Evolution" (2), have always been problematic in evolutionary studies (2-7). We adhere to the Biological Species Concept (2), recognizing its merits and demerits (2). The recent resurgence in speciation studies highlights many past obscurities (4), including sympatric speciation (7-18). Nevertheless, many basic questions related to adaptation and speciation, including sympatric speciation, still await resolution based primarily on the genomic sequence studies, such as in Drosophila (8), or even in species that presumably originated sympatrically, such as in the fly Rhagolites (9) or cichlid fishes in Africa and Neotropical America (10).The mode of species origin is still a major focus of heated debate. Does speciation occur primarily in allopatry, i.e., requiring complete geographic isolation, or can it occur in parapatry and peripatry, where limited gene exchange operates, or even in sympatry, where free gene exchange occurs, as suggested by Darwin (1)? Darwin envisaged allopatric, parapatric, and sympatric modes of speciation, but neither he nor his followers estimated their proportions in nature, which remain enigmatic and limited (4). Moreover, no spe...
There is growing evidence for rapid adaptive evolution in response to climate change, including phenological transitions such as earlier flowering with climate warming. The consequences of these evolutionary changes for population dynamics and shifts in species ranges remain, however, quite unexplored. Here, we propose that inter-population differences in patterns of flowering across geographic precipitation gradients can be considered a proxy for changes in flowering time due to variation in rainfall resulting from climate change. To this end, we analyze trends of variation in flowering time across rainfall gradients in the eastern Mediterranean region in three main plant life-forms present in the local vegetation: winter annuals, geophytes, and perennial grasses. These life-forms cope with the hot and dry summer via a drought escape strategy. The analysis is based on published and unpublished data from common-garden experiments in which plants from populations sampled along rainfall gradients were grown under similar conditions, thus allowing detection of genetic differences in flowering time along the gradient. The data clearly indicate that decreasing rainfall across a Mediterranean-desert transect is associated with earlier flowering in winter annual species. In contrast, the limited available data shows no consistent trend of change in flowering time with decreasing rainfall in geophytes and perennial grasses. The phenological shift to early flowering in winter annuals coping with terminal drought appears to be a widespread method for adaptation to arid environments by stress avoidance, diminishing the risk of early death before seed production. However, changes in flowering time associated with the reduction in precipitation predicted by climate change models are relatively small, suggesting that additional traits are involved in the adaptation to increasing aridity. The hypothesis that low water availability is an environmental signal inducing earlier flowering of annual plants under drought conditions is not supported by experimental data.
Functional trade-offs have long been recognised as important mechanisms of species coexistence, but direct experimental evidence for such mechanisms is extremely rare. Here, we test the effect of one classical trade-off - a negative correlation between seed size and seed number - by establishing microcosm plant communities with positive, negative and no correlation between seed size and seed number and analysing the effect of the seed size/number correlation on species richness. Consistent with theory, a negative correlation between seed size and seed number led to a higher number of species in the communities and a corresponding wider range of seed size (a measure of functional richness) by promoting coexistence of large- and small-seeded species. Our study provides the first direct evidence that a seed size/number trade-off may contribute to species coexistence, and at a wider context, demonstrates the potential role of functional trade-offs in maintaining species diversity.
SignificanceA basic challenge of ecology is to understand the mechanisms that generate changes in the composition of ecological communities. At the most fundamental level, any change in species composition results from the interplay between two contrasting forces: selection (representing deterministic forces) and drift (representing stochastic forces). Here we provide experimental evidence that the relative importance of these two forces depends on the magnitude of dispersal. Specifically, increasing dispersal increases the effective size of the communities, thereby diminishing the relative importance of demographic stochasticity and increasing the relative importance of selective forces as drivers of community assembly. Our findings, supported by computer simulations, have important implications for understanding the ecological consequences of dispersal.
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