The Influence of Late Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity on Species Endemism

Abstract

The effects of climate change on biodiversity should depend in part on climate displacement rate (climate-change velocity) and its interaction with species' capacity to migrate. We estimated Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate-change velocity by integrating macroclimatic shifts since the Last Glacial Maximum with topoclimatic gradients. Globally, areas with high velocities were associated with marked absences of small-ranged amphibians, mammals, and birds. The association between endemism and velocity was weakest in the highly vagile birds and strongest in the weakly dispersing amphibians, linking dispersal ability to extinction risk due to climate change. High velocity was also associated with low endemism at regional scales, especially in wet and aseasonal regions. Overall, we show that low-velocity areas are essential refuges for Earth's many small-ranged species.

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

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Biodiversity from mountain building

“…As mountain habitats form, speciation bursts occur, driven by the requirement to adapt to the new environment 8 . Although the resulting species are often specialized to a small area 3,9 , mountain species can experience lower rates of extinction during climatic changes because they need to move considerably shorter distances to track their optimal temperature range as compared with lowland species 9 . Because biodiversity is often high in a mountain region -a result of high speciation and low extinction -there is a raised likelihood of some species dispersing to other areas.…”

Palaeo-precipitation is a major determinant of palm species richness patterns across Madagascar: a tropical biodiversity hotspot

“…The well-established climatic stability hypothesis [9 -11] proposes that climatically stable areas give rise to higher species richness [10] and higher endemism [11]. Notably, a recent global-scale study has linked endemism in birds, mammals and amphibians to low Late Quaternary climate displacement rates [12].…”