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Contrasting drivers of diversification rates on islands and continents across three passerine families.

ABSTRACT: Diversification rates vary greatly among taxa. Understanding how species-specific traits influence speciation rates will help elucidate mechanisms driving biodiversity over broad spatio-temporal scales. Ecological specialization and range size are two hypothesized drivers of speciation rates, yet each mechanism predicts both increases and decreases in speciation. We constructed a continuous index of specialization using avian bill morphology to determine the relative effect of specialization and range size and shape on speciation rates across 559 species within the Emberizoidea superfamily, a morphologically diverse New World clade. We found a significant positive correlation between specialization and speciation rate and a negative correlation with range size. Only the effect of specialization persisted after removing island endemics, however, suggesting that ecological specialization is an important driver of diversity across large macroevolutionary scales, and the relative importance of specific drivers may differ between islands and continents.

SUBMITTER: Conway M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6892041 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contrasting drivers of diversification rates on islands and continents across three passerine families.

Conway Meaghan M Olsen Brian J BJ

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20191113 1915

Diversification rates vary greatly among taxa. Understanding how species-specific traits influence speciation rates will help elucidate mechanisms driving biodiversity over broad spatio-temporal scales. Ecological specialization and range size are two hypothesized drivers of speciation rates, yet each mechanism predicts both increases and decreases in speciation. We constructed a continuous index of specialization using avian bill morphology to determine the relative effect of specialization and ...[more]

PMID: 31718493

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Species diversity is determined by both local environmental conditions that control differentiation and extinction and the outcome of large-scale processes that affect migration. The latter primarily comprises climatic change and dynamic landscape alteration. In the past few million years, both Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa experienced drastic climatic and geological oscillations: in Southeast Asia, especially in China, the Tibetan Plateau significantly rose up, and the flow of the Yangtze River was reversed. In East Africa, lakes and rivers experienced frequent range expansions and regressions due to the African mega-droughts. To test how such climatic and geological histories of both regions relate to their respective regional species and genetic diversity, a large scale comparative phylogeographic study is essential. Bellamya, a species rich freshwater snail genus that is widely distributed across China and East Africa, represents a suitable model system to address this question. We sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear DNA for members of the genus from China and used published sequences from Africa and some other locations in Asia to investigate their phylogeny and distribution of genetic diversity. RESULTS:Our phylogenetic analysis revealed two monophyletic groups, one in China and one in East Africa. Within the Chinese group, Bellamya species show little genetic differentiation. In contrast, we observe fairly deep divergence among the East African lakes with almost every lake possessing its unique clade. Our results show that strong divergence does not necessarily depend on intrinsic characteristics of a species, but rather is related to the landscape dynamics of a region. CONCLUSION:Our phylogenetic results suggest that the Bellamya in China and East Africa are independent phylogenetic clades with different evolutionary trajectories. The different climate and geological histories likely contributed to the diverging evolutionary patterns. Repeated range expansions and regressions of lakes likely contributed to the great divergence of Bellamya in East Africa, while reversal of the river courses and intermingling of different lineages had an opposite effect on Bellamya diversification in China.

Dataset Information

Contrasting drivers of diversification rates on islands and continents across three passerine families.

Publications

Contrasting drivers of diversification rates on islands and continents across three passerine families.

Similar Datasets

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