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An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the processes that have generated the latitudinal biodiversity gradient and the continental differences in tropical biodiversity remains a major goal of evolutionary biology. Here we estimate the timing and direction of range shifts of extant flowering plants (angiosperms) between tropical and non-tropical zones, and into and out of the major tropical regions of the world. We then calculate rates of speciation and extinction taking into account incomplete taxonomic sampling. We use a recently published fossil calibrated phylogeny and apply novel bioinformatic tools to code species into user-defined polygons. We reconstruct biogeographic history using stochastic character mapping to compute relative numbers of range shifts in proportion to the number of available lineages through time. Our results, based on the analysis of c. 22,600 species and c. 20 million geo-referenced occurrence records, show no significant differences between the speciation and extinction of tropical and non-tropical angiosperms. This suggests that at least in plants, the latitudinal biodiversity gradient primarily derives from other factors than differential rates of diversification. In contrast, the outstanding species richness found today in the American tropics (the Neotropics), as compared to tropical Africa and tropical Asia, is associated with significantly higher speciation and extinction rates. This suggests an exceedingly rapid evolutionary turnover, i.e., Neotropical species being formed and replaced by one another at unparalleled rates. In addition, tropical America stands out from other continents by having "pumped out" more species than it received through most of the last 66 million years. These results imply that the Neotropics have acted as an engine for global plant diversity.

SUBMITTER: Antonelli A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4389561 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics.

Antonelli Alexandre A Zizka Alexander A Silvestro Daniele D Scharn Ruud R Cascales-Miñana Borja B Bacon Christine D CD

Frontiers in genetics 20150408

Understanding the processes that have generated the latitudinal biodiversity gradient and the continental differences in tropical biodiversity remains a major goal of evolutionary biology. Here we estimate the timing and direction of range shifts of extant flowering plants (angiosperms) between tropical and non-tropical zones, and into and out of the major tropical regions of the world. We then calculate rates of speciation and extinction taking into account incomplete taxonomic sampling. We use ...[more]

PMID: 25904934

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Project description:AimGeographic, climatic, and soil factors are major drivers of plant beta diversity, but their importance for dryland plant communities is poorly known. This study aims to: i) characterize patterns of beta diversity in global drylands, ii) detect common environmental drivers of beta diversity, and iii) test for thresholds in environmental conditions driving potential shifts in plant species composition.Location224 sites in diverse dryland plant communities from 22 geographical regions in six continents.MethodsBeta diversity was quantified with four complementary measures: the percentage of singletons (species occurring at only one site), Whittake's beta diversity (β(W)), a directional beta diversity metric based on the correlation in species occurrences among spatially contiguous sites (β(R2)), and a multivariate abundance-based metric (β(MV)). We used linear modelling to quantify the relationships between these metrics of beta diversity and geographic, climatic, and soil variables.ResultsSoil fertility and variability in temperature and rainfall, and to a lesser extent latitude, were the most important environmental predictors of beta diversity. Metrics related to species identity (percentage of singletons and β(W)) were most sensitive to soil fertility, whereas those metrics related to environmental gradients and abundance ((β(R2)) and β(MV)) were more associated with climate variability. Interactions among soil variables, climatic factors, and plant cover were not important determinants of beta diversity. Sites receiving less than 178 mm of annual rainfall differed sharply in species composition from more mesic sites (> 200 mm).Main conclusionsSoil fertility and variability in temperature and rainfall are the most important environmental predictors of variation in plant beta diversity in global drylands. Our results suggest that those sites annually receiving ~ 178 mm of rainfall will be especially sensitive to future climate changes. These findings may help to define appropriate conservation strategies for mitigating effects of climate change on dryland vegetation.

Project description:UnlabelledThe increasing number of zoonotic infections caused by influenza A virus (IAV) subtypes of avian origin (e.g., H5N1 and H7N9) in recent years underscores the need to better understand the factors driving IAV evolution and diversity. To evaluate the current feasibility of global analyses to contribute to this aim, we evaluated information in the public domain to explore IAV evolutionary dynamics, including nucleotide substitution rates and selection pressures, using 14 IAV subtypes in 32 different countries over a 12-year period (2000 to 2011). Using geospatial information from 39,785 IAV strains, we examined associations between subtype diversity and socioeconomic, biodiversity, and agricultural indices. Our analyses showed that nucleotide substitution rates for 11 of the 14 evaluated subtypes tended to be higher in Asian countries, particularly in East Asia, than in Canada and the United States. Similarly, at a regional level, subtypes H5N1, H5N2, and H6N2 exhibited significantly higher substitution rates in East Asia than in North America. In contrast, the selection pressures (measured as ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous evolutionary changes [dN/dS ratios]) acting on individual subtypes showed little geographic variation. We found that the strongest predictors for the detected subtype diversity at the country level were reporting effort (i.e., total number of strains reported) and health care spending (an indicator of economic development). Our analyses also identified major global gaps in IAV reporting (including a lack of sequences submitted from large portions of Africa and South America and a lack of geolocation information) and in broad subtype testing which, until addressed, will continue to hinder efforts to track the evolution and diversity of IAV around the world.ImportanceIn recent years, an increasing number of influenza A virus (IAV) subtypes, including H5N1, H7N9, and H10N8, have been detected in humans. High fatality rates have led to an increased urgency to better understand where and how novel pathogenic influenza virus strains emerge. Our findings showed that mutational rates of 11 commonly encountered subtypes were higher in East Asian countries than in North America, suggesting that there may be a greater risk for the emergence of novel pathogenic strains in East Asia. In assessing the potential drivers of IAV subtype diversity, our analyses confirmed that reporting effort and health care spending were the best predictors of the observed subtype diversity at the country level. These findings underscore the need to increase sampling and reporting efforts for all subtypes in many undersampled countries throughout the world.

Dataset Information

An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics.

Publications

An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics.

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