Why does diversification slow down?

Moen, Daniel S.; Morlon, Hélène

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.01.010

Cited by 268 publications

(358 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Realistic phylogenies (including tree imbalance and deceleration in the rate of lineage accumulation) can be obtained purely from ecological speciation (McPeek 2008) as well as purely from geographical speciation (Pigot et al 2010). We therefore need new models to make quantitative predictions to assess the contribution of different modes of speciation in community assembly (Moen & Morlon 2014). These might include not only phylogenies, but also ecological traits and species ranges.…”

Section: Modes Of Speciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

et al. 2015

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The study of islands as model systems has played an important role in the development of evolutionary and ecological theory. The 50th anniversary of MacArthur and Wilson's (December 1963) article, 'An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography', was a recent milestone for this theme. Since 1963, island systems have provided new insights into the formation of ecological communities. Here, building on such developments, we highlight prospects for research on islands to improve our understanding of the ecology and evolution of communities in general. Throughout, we emphasise how attributes of islands combine to provide unusual research opportunities, the implications of which stretch far beyond islands. Molecular tools and increasing data acquisition now permit reassessment of some fundamental issues that interested MacArthur and Wilson. These include the formation of ecological networks, species abundance distributions, and the contribution of evolution to community assembly. We also extend our prospects to other fields of ecology and evolution -understanding ecosystem functioning, speciation and diversification -frequently employing assets of oceanic islands in inferring the geographic area within which evolution has occurred, and potential barriers to gene flow. Although island-based theory is continually being enriched, incorporating non-equilibrium dynamics is identified as a major challenge for the future.

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Section: Modes Of Speciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

et al. 2015

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“…An ecological limit on speciation or the filling of available niches (30,31) is commonly invoked to explain speciation slowdowns. Members of the same clade are more likely to compete for similar if not the same ecological niche or portions of ecospace (32,33), and the more numerous the number of contemporary lineages, the fewer the number of available niches.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Dinosaurs in decline tens of millions of years before their final extinction

Sakamoto

Benton

Venditti

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Whether dinosaurs were in a long-term decline or whether they were reigning strong right up to their final disappearance at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event 66 Mya has been debated for decades with no clear resolution. The dispute has continued unresolved because of a lack of statistical rigor and appropriate evolutionary framework. Here, for the first time to our knowledge, we apply a Bayesian phylogenetic approach to model the evolutionary dynamics of speciation and extinction through time in Mesozoic dinosaurs, properly taking account of previously ignored statistical violations. We find overwhelming support for a long-term decline across all dinosaurs and within all three dinosaurian subclades (Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda), where speciation rate slowed down through time and was ultimately exceeded by extinction rate tens of millions of years before the K-Pg boundary. The only exceptions to this general pattern are the morphologically specialized herbivores, the Hadrosauriformes and Ceratopsidae, which show rapid species proliferations throughout the Late Cretaceous instead. Our results highlight that, despite some heterogeneity in speciation dynamics, dinosaurs showed a marked reduction in their ability to replace extinct species with new ones, making them vulnerable to extinction and unable to respond quickly to and recover from the final catastrophic event.dinosaurs | evolution | speciation | phylogeny | Bayesian methods N onavian dinosaurs met their demise suddenly, coincident with the Chicxulub impact in Mexico around 66 Mya; however, whether there was any long-term trend toward declining diversity leading to the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary has been controversial and debated for decades (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). This longstanding dispute has been prolonged partly because of differences in fossil datasets from different parts of the world and difficulties in rock dating but most importantly, methodological weaknesses-previous attempts have been nonphylogenetic, and analyses were conducted on simple time-binned tabulated data, resulting in a lack of statistical rigor (phylogenetic and temporal nonindependence have not been considered), and did not truly investigate evolutionary dynamics, such as speciation and extinction rates. In fact, patterns of speciation and extinction in dinosaurs have gone largely unstudied (8). Here, we study speciation dynamics (relationship between speciation and extinction rates) using an exclusively phylogenetic approach in a Bayesian framework.If speciation and extinction rate were constant (but speciation was higher), we would expect to see a linear increase through time in the logarithm of the number of speciation events along each path of a phylogenetic tree (linear) (Materials and Methods and Fig. 1, model A). If speciation rate decreased through time but remained above extinction rate, then we would expect a curvilinear relationship (Fig. 1, models B and C). Such a relationship would reach an asymptote ...

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“…Although this is often interpreted as evidence of adaptive radiation (i.e. 'early-burst' signal), processes other than initial niche filling could also result in a slowdown of diversification over time [52]. Whereas a novel lineage on an isolated island or lake might rapidly have access to all available niche space, it might take a significant amount of time before a continental clade has spread across all available habitats.…”

Section: (C) Continental Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergence across a continent: adaptive diversification in a recent radiation of Australian lizards

Blom

Horner²,

Moritz

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Recent radiations are important to evolutionary biologists, because they provide an opportunity to study the mechanisms that link micro-and macroevolution. The role of ecological speciation during adaptive radiation has been intensively studied, but radiations can arise from a diversity of evolutionary processes; in particular, on large continental landmasses where allopatric speciation might frequently precede ecological differentiation. It is therefore important to establish a phylogenetic and ecological framework for recent continental-scale radiations that are species-rich and ecologically diverse. Here, we use a genomic (approx. 1 200 loci, exon capture) approach to fit branch lengths on a summary-coalescent species tree and generate a time-calibrated phylogeny for a recent and ecologically diverse radiation of Australian scincid lizards; the genus Cryptoblepharus. We then combine the phylogeny with a comprehensive phenotypic dataset for over 800 individuals across the 26 species, and use comparative methods to test whether habitat specialization can explain current patterns of phenotypic variation in ecologically relevant traits. We find significant differences in morphology between species that occur in distinct environments and convergence in ecomorphology with repeated habitat shifts across the continent. These results suggest that isolated analogous habitats have provided parallel ecological opportunity and have repeatedly promoted adaptive diversification. By contrast, speciation processes within the same habitat have resulted in distinct lineages with relatively limited morphological variation. Overall, our study illustrates how alternative diversification processes might have jointly stimulated species proliferation across the continent and generated a remarkably diverse group of Australian lizards.

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Why does diversification slow down?

Cited by 268 publications

References 75 publications

Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur‐Wilson

Dinosaurs in decline tens of millions of years before their final extinction

Convergence across a continent: adaptive diversification in a recent radiation of Australian lizards

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