Interspecific variation in climatic niche breadth underlies many ecological phenomena, yet only recently have studies-focused explicitly on the evolution of climatic niche breadth. Here, we integrate data on geographical distributions, bioclimatic variables, and phylogenetic relationships of 18,404 terrestrial vertebrate species to investigate the evolution of climatic niche breadth. We demonstrate that the evolutionary rates of upper and lower climatic niche boundaries are largely uncoupled. For instance, the rate of evolution of low temperature limits was nearly twice that of high-temperature limits, whereas low-and high-precipitation limits remained relatively constant despite a considerable variation in average precipitation. These results suggest that the evolution of climatic niche breadth is fundamentally different between axes. Finally, we found no relationship between climatic niche breadth and speciation rates. The consistency of these patterns across taxa suggests that they represent general principles governing the evolution of climatic niche breadth.
Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant species in the Atlantic Forest of South America. The ATLANTIC ANTS data set, which is part of the ATLANTIC SERIES data papers, is a compilation of ant records from collections (18,713 records), unpublished data (29,651 records), and published sources (106,910 records; 1,059 references), including papers, theses, dissertations, and book chapters published from 1886 to 2020. In total, the data set contains 153,818 ant records from 7,636 study locations in the Atlantic Forest, representing 10 subfamilies, 99 genera, 1,114 ant species identified with updated taxonomic certainty, and 2,235 morphospecies codes. Our data set reflects the heterogeneity in ant records, which include ants sampled at the beginning of the taxonomic history of myrmecology (the 19th and 20th centuries) and more recent ant surveys designed to address specific questions in ecology and biology. The data set can be used by researchers to develop strategies to deal with different macroecological and region‐wide questions, focusing on assemblages, species occurrences, and distribution patterns. Furthermore, the data can be used to assess the consequences of changes in land use in the Atlantic Forest on different ecological processes. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set, but we request that authors cite this data paper when using these data in publications or teaching events.
Aim: Variation in the size and position of geographical ranges is a key variable that underlies most biogeographical patterns. However, relatively little is known in terms of general principles driving their evolution, particularly in the marine realm. In this study we explore several fundamental properties regarding the evolution of reef fish latitudinal ranges, namely the degree of similarity in range size between ancestor and descendant lineages (i.e. phylogenetic signal); the evolution of range limits; and the latitudinal distribution of range sizes, particularly with respect to Rapoport's rule. Location: Global.Taxon: Reef-associated fishes. Methods:We integrate data on the latitudinal distribution and evolutionary history of 5,071 reef fish species with phylogenetic comparative methods to assess the level of phylogenetic signal in latitudinal range size, low-and high-latitude limits and range midpoints, and to estimate rates of evolution of those traits. Finally, we test whether latitudinal ranges become smaller near the equator, as predicted by Rapoport's rule, using phylogenetic generalized least squares.Results: There were varying levels of phylogenetic signal in latitudinal range size, lowand high-latitude limits and range midpoints. Despite these differences, latitudinal midpoints were consistently shown to have the highest phylogenetic signal among all measured geographical features. Interestingly, the position of high-latitude limits in general evolved at substantially faster rates than their low-latitude counterparts.Finally, we confirm for the first time the existence of an inverse Rapoport's rule in reef-associated fishes using phylogenetic comparative methods. Indeed, mean latitudinal range size of tropical species is nearly twice the size of their temperate counterparts (2,067 ± 1,431 km vs. 1,168 ± 725 km respectively). Main conclusions:We uncovered several congruent patterns in phylogenetic signal and rates of evolution of latitudinal ranges, despite vastly disparate biogeographical distributions and ecological differences between the studied fish lineages. Such broad congruence across different taxa and oceans, as well as with previous data from terrestrial environments, suggests that the observed patterns might represent general principles governing geographical range evolution.
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