Macroevolution and climate changes: a global multi-family test supports the resource-use hypothesis in terrestrial mammals

A phylogenetic study to assess the link between biome specialization and diversification in swallowtail butterflies

“…Apart from biome specialist, we also showed that extreme biome‐generalist species inhabiting more than five biomes were observed infrequently but still more than expected. These results are in line with the results previously obtained by Hernández Fernández and Vrba (2005) for large African mammals, Moreno Bofarull et al (2008) for South American mammals, Cantalapiedra et al (2011) for ruminants worldwide, Menéndez et al (2021) for squirrels of the world and Hernández Fernández et al (2022) for world's mammals, which suggests that the resource‐use hypothesis provides a common ground for the understanding of evolutionary processes triggered by climatic changes, irrespective of the studied taxa. Moreover, swallowtail butterflies showed a lower mean BSI (they inhabit fewer biomes) than most previously studied mammal groups.…”

“…Moreover, some non-extreme biomes also showed high percentages of biome-specialist species. The prevalence of biome-specialist species in the tropical deciduous woodlands was pointed out in previous works on mammals (Cantalapiedra et al, 2011;Hernández Fernández et al, 2022;Hernández Fernández & Vrba, 2005;Moreno Bofarull et al, 2008). Even though this biome cannot be considered a climatic extreme, it is a markedly heterogeneous environment whose historical dynamic is closely associated with rainforest fluctuations (Dexter et al, 2018;Haffer, 2008;Hoorn et al, 2010).…”

“…The overlap between species distribution ranges and biomes was calculated using ArcGIS software. These criteria allow to represent the adaptation capacity of species while maintaining their climatic specificity and, at the same time, allow us to compare our results with previous works using the same methodology (Cantalapiedra et al, 2011;Gómez Cano et al, 2013;Hernández Fernández et al, 2022;Hernández Fernández & Vrba, 2005;Menéndez et al, 2021;Moreno Bofarull et al, 2008). Then, we computed the biomic specialization index (BSI) defined by Hernández Fernández and Vrba (2005) as the number of inhabited biomes by a species.…”

“…The resource‐use hypothesis has been previously tested in different vertebrate groups showing a high prevalence of biome specialists (Cantalapiedra et al, 2011; Gómez Cano et al, 2013; Hernández Fernández et al, 2022; Hernández Fernández & Vrba, 2005; Moreno Bofarull et al, 2008; Vrba, 1987) and a relationship between bioclimatic specialization and higher speciation rates (Cantalapiedra et al, 2011; Menéndez et al, 2021). However, the large‐scale biogeographic patterns of non‐vertebrate groups are poorly explored and barely used as models to test macroecological rules.…”

Phylogenetic biome conservatism as a key concept for an integrative understanding of evolutionary history: Galliformes and Falconiformes as study cases

“…The biome concept integrates information on both biotic and abiotic conditions (Walter, 1970;Whittaker, 1975;Moncrieff et al, 2016;Mucina, 2019), describing environments not only as a set of different climatic variables, but also considering the specific plant physiognomy that these variables determine (Walter, 1970;Whittaker, 1975;Donoghue & Edwards, 2014;Ringelberg et al, 2020). The use of biomes in macroecological studies might provide a new understanding of the relationship between historical climatic dynamics and the configuration of evolutionary processes, patterns of diversification and colonization of new environments at the global scale (Guerrero et al, 2013;Cantalapiedra et al, 2014;Ringelberg et al, 2020;Menéndez et al, 2021;Gamboa et al, 2022;Hernández Fernández et al, 2022).…”