Tiede, Y.; Homeier, J.; Cumbicus Torres, N.; Pena Tamayo, J.E.; Albrecht, J.; Ziegenhagen, B.; Bendix, J.; Brandl, R. & Farwig, N. (2016): <b>Phylogenetic niche conservatism does not explain elevational patterns of species richness, phyodiversity and family age of tree assemblages in Andean rainforest</b>. <i>Erdkunde</i> <b>70</b>(1), 83-106.
Resource Description
Title:
Phylogenetic niche conservatism does not explain elevational patterns of species richness, phyodiversity and family age of tree assemblages in Andean rainforest
FOR816dw ID:
1485
Publication Date:
2016-01-18
License and Usage Rights:
PAK 823-825 data user agreement. (www.tropicalmountainforest.org/dataagreementp3.do)
email:
bendix <at> staff.uni-marburg.de
Faculty of Geography
Deutschhausstraße 10
Philipps University of Marburg
Laboratory for Climatology and Remote Sensing
35032 Marburg
Germany
Phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) is the tendency of species within a clade to retain ancestral traits and<br/>
to persist in their primary ecological niches on geological time scales. It links evolutionary and ecological processes and has<br/>
been hypothesized to explain patterns of species richness and the composition of species assemblages. Decreasing patterns<br/>
of species richness along latitudinal gradients were often explained by the combination of ancient tropical climates, trait <br/>
retention of tropical lineages and environmental filtering. PNC also predicts decreasing phylodiversity and family age with <br/>
decreasing tropicality and has been invoked to explain these patterns along climatic gradients across latitudinal as well as elevational<br/>
gradients.<br/>
However,<br/>
recent<br/>
studies<br/>
on<br/>
tree<br/>
assemblages<br/>
along<br/>
latitudinal<br/>
and<br/>
elevational<br/>
gradients<br/>
in<br/>
South<br/>
America<br/>
<br/>
found<br/>
patterns<br/>
contradicting<br/>
the<br/>
PNC<br/>
framework.<br/>
Our<br/>
study<br/>
aims<br/>
to<br/>
shed<br/>
light<br/>
on<br/>
these<br/>
contradictions<br/>
using<br/>
three<br/>
different<br/>
<br/>
metrics of the phylogenetic composition that form a gradient from recent evolutionary history to deep phylogenetic<br/>
relationships. We analyzed the relationships between elevation and taxonomic species richness, phylodiversity and family<br/>
age of tree assemblages in Andean rainforests in Ecuador. In contrast to predictions of the PNC we found no associations<br/>
of elevation with species richness of trees and increasing clade level phylodiversity and family age of the tree assemblages<br/>
with elevation. Interestingly, we found that patterns of phylodiversity across the studied elevation gradient depended especially<br/>
on<br/>
the<br/>
deep<br/>
nodes<br/>
in<br/>
the<br/>
phylogeny.<br/>
We<br/>
therefore<br/>
suggest<br/>
that<br/>
the<br/>
dispersal<br/>
of<br/>
evolutionarily old plant lineages with<br/>
extra-tropical origins influences the recent composition of tree assemblages in the Andes. Further studies spanning broader<br/>
ecological gradients and using better resolved phylogenies to estimate family and species ages are needed to obtain a deeper<br/>
mechanistic understanding of the processes that drive the assembly of tree communities along elevational gradients.
Keywords:
| Ecuador | vegetation geography | tree species assembly | elevational gradient | orogeny |
