When phylogeny and ecology meet: Modeling the occurrence of Trichoptera with environmental and phylogenetic data

Abstract

Ecological studies are increasingly considering phylogenetic relationships among species. The phylogeny is used as a proxy or filter to improve statistical tests and retain evolutionary elements, such as niche conservation. We used the phylogenetic topology to improve the model for occurrence of Trichoptera genera in Cerrado (Brazilian Savanna) streams. We tested whether parameters generated by logistic models of occurrence, using phylogenetic signals, are better than models generated without phylogenetic information. We used a model with Bayesian updating to examine the influence of stream water pH and phylogenetic relationship among genera on the occurrence of Trichoptera genera. Then, we compared this model with the logistic model for each Trichoptera genus. The probability of occurrence of most genera increased with water pH, and the phylogeny‐based explicit logistic model improved the parameters estimated for observed genera. The inferred relationship between genera occurrence and stream pH improved, indicating that phylogeny adds relevant information when estimating ecological responses of organisms. Water with elevated acidity (low pH values) may be restrictive for the occurrence of Trichoptera larvae, especially if the regional streams exhibit neutral to alkaline water, as is observed in the Cerrado region. Using phylogeny‐based modeling to predict species occurrence is a prominent opportunity to extend our current statistical framework based on environmental conditions, as it enables a more precise estimation of ecological parameters.

Clusia suborbicularis is not a synonym of Clusia flava: Molecular and metabolomic evidence

“…The results of the analyses to define the geographical areas of distribution of C. suborbicularis, compared to those of C. flava, showed the former having a more restricted distribution (Fig. 5); these results, together with the reconstruction of evolutionary trajectories based on the ecological niches of the region (Serra-Varela & al., 2015;Godoy & al., 2018), suggest that C. suborbicularis could be considered a native species to the Mayan forest.…”

The link between avian brachial index, flight capability and the neornithine evolutionary radiation

“…Certainly, phylogenetic niche conservatism was first noted by Darwin (1859) and has since been observed, for example, in birds, mammals, and butterflies in southern Mexico (Peterson et al, 1999) and plants (Prinzing et al, 2001; Ricklefs & Latham, 1992). Additionally, phylogenetically‐informed models were better able to predict ecological responses in Trichoptera (Godoy et al, 2018). Therefore, it may be prudent to explore the utility of phylogenetic or taxonomic information as a predictor of flight ecology in future studies.…”

Supraspecific units in correlative niche modeling improves the prediction of geographic potential of biological invasions

“…Specifically, by adding the occurrences of sister taxa of each focal species (that is, when we created the U1 or U2 modeling unit), omission rates decreased considerably in the areas of invasion. This result suggests that existing niches of the species were not fully representative of their fundamental niches before invading other regions; when we incorporated presences of the most closely related species, we added relevant and complementary information for the characterization of the fundamental niches ( Godoy, Camargos & Lodi, 2018 ). However, in two of the three species evaluated, predictive power decreased when additional, less closely related lineages were added, probably because these lineages have somewhat diverged in niche characteristics from the focal species.…”