Plate tectonics drive tropical reef biodiversity dynamics

Abstract

The Cretaceous breakup of Gondwana strongly modified the global distribution of shallow tropical seas reshaping the geographic configuration of marine basins. However, the links between tropical reef availability, plate tectonic processes and marine biodiversity distribution patterns are still unknown. Here, we show that a spatial diversification model constrained by absolute plate motions for the past 140 million years predicts the emergence and movement of diversity hotspots on tropical reefs. The spatial dynamics of tropical reefs explains marine fauna diversification in the Tethyan Ocean during the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic, and identifies an eastward movement of ancestral marine lineages towards the Indo-Australian Archipelago in the Miocene. A mechanistic model based only on habitat-driven diversification and dispersal yields realistic predictions of current biodiversity patterns for both corals and fishes. As in terrestrial systems, we demonstrate that plate tectonics played a major role in driving tropical marine shallow reef biodiversity dynamics.

Phylogenetic evidence that both ancient vicariance and dispersal have contributed to the biogeographic patterns of anchialine cave shrimps

“…Maps adapted from Leprieur et al . 46 (http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11461/figures/1) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Full terms at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. …”

A process‐based model supports an association between dispersal and the prevalence of species traits in tropical reef fish assemblages

“…Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the global imbalance in species richness along latitude (Mittelbach et al 2007), continents or oceans (Qian and Ricklefs 2000, Renema et al 2008, Couvreur et al 2015. During the last ~100 million years, when many extant clades diversified, the continents and ocean basins position, topography and climatic conditions changed, influencing biodiversity dynamics (Leprieur et al 2016, Chalmandrier et al 2018, Rolland and Condamine 2019. During the last ~100 million years, when many extant clades diversified, the continents and ocean basins position, topography and climatic conditions changed, influencing biodiversity dynamics (Leprieur et al 2016, Chalmandrier et al 2018, Rolland and Condamine 2019.…”

“…During the last ~100 million years, when many extant clades diversified, the continents and ocean basins position, topography and climatic conditions changed, influencing biodiversity dynamics (Leprieur et al 2016, Chalmandrier et al 2018, Rolland and Condamine 2019. For example, Leprieur et al (2016) showed how the dynamics of shallow reefs influenced the diversification of tropical marine organisms in space and time. For example, Leprieur et al (2016) showed how the dynamics of shallow reefs influenced the diversification of tropical marine organisms in space and time.…”

“…Although dispersal is a spatial process, the study of species diversification rarely considers external constraints that may vary among regions, such as dispersal dynamics through geological time (Pellissier et al 2017). An alternative to this limitation would be to simulate the evolution of species ranges constrained by past habitat dynamics and a parameter of dispersal ability (Leprieur et al 2016, Descombes et al 2018, Rangel et al 2018. An alternative to this limitation would be to simulate the evolution of species ranges constrained by past habitat dynamics and a parameter of dispersal ability (Leprieur et al 2016, Descombes et al 2018, Rangel et al 2018.…”

“…In the context of biodiversity, the agents are the species, the bottom-level mechanisms may include speciation, dispersal and extinction (Gotelli et al 2009, Descombes et al 2018, while the emerging patterns are, for example, species diversity gradients, geographical range size (Alzate et al 2019b) or the prevalence of traits in species assemblages. Spatial mechanistic models can simultaneously reproduce patterns of species diversity and diversification rates (Leprieur et al 2016, Rangel et al 2018), but require the integration of paleo-environmental reconstruction (Leprieur et al 2016, Rangel et al 2018. The advantage of a spatial approach for studying diversification over a traditional phylogenetic one is that the influence of past habitat dynamics on species dispersal, and hence on species diversification, is considered explicitly (Gotelli et al 2009, Descombes et al 2018.…”