Elevational range sizes of woody plants increase with climate variability in the Tropical Andes
Entity
UAM. Departamento de BiologíaPublisher
John Wiley and Sons IncDate
2023-12-27Citation
10.1111/jbi.14783
Journal of Biogeography 51.5 (2024): 814-826
ISSN
0305-0270DOI
10.1111/jbi.14783Funded by
We thank the Dirección General de Biodiversidad, the Bolivian National Park Service (SERNAP), the Madidi National Park and local communities for permits, access, and collaboration in Bolivia, where fieldwork was supported by the National Science Foundation (DEB 0101775, DEB 0743457, DEB 1836353). Additional financial support to the Madidi Project has been provided by the Missouri Botanical Garden, the National Geographic Society (NGS 7754‐04 and NGS 8047‐06), International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I‐CARES) at Washington University in St. Louis, the Comunidad de Madrid (Spain), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spain), Centro de Estudios de América Latina (Banco Santander and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain), and the Taylor and Davidson families. We thank all the researchers, students and local guides that were involved in the collection of the data, particularly Carla Maldonado, Maritza Cornejo, Alejandro Araujo, Javier Quisbert, and Narel PaniaguaEditor's Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14783Subjects
Andes; Bolivia; climate variability hypothesis; elevation; forest plots; Madidi; range size; Biología y Biomedicina / Biología; BotánicaRights
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons LtdAbstract
Aim: The climate variability hypothesis proposes that species subjected to wide variation in climatic conditions will evolve wider niches, resulting in larger distributions. We test this hypothesis in tropical plants across a broad elevational gradient; specifically, we use a species-level approach to evaluate whether elevational range sizes are explained by the levels of thermal variability experienced by species.
Location: Central Andes.
Time Period: Present day. Taxon: Woody plants. Methods: Combining data from 479 forest plots, we determined the elevational distributions of nearly 2300 species along an elevational gradient (~209–3800 m). For each species, we calculated the maximum annual variation in temperature experienced across its elevational distribution. We used phylogenetic generalized least square models to evaluate the effect of thermal variability on range size. Our models included additional covariates that might affect range size: body size, local abundance, mean temperature and total precipitation. We also considered interactions between thermal variability and mean temperature or precipitation. To account for geometric constraints, we repeated our analyses with a standardized measure of range size, calculated by comparing observed range sizes with values obtained from a null model.
Results: Our results supported the main prediction of the climate variability hypothesis. Thermal variability had a strong positive effect on the range size, with species exposed to higher thermal variability having broader elevational distributions. Body size and local abundance also had positive, yet weak effects, on elevational range size. Furthermore, there was a strong positive interaction between thermal variability and mean annual temperature.
Main Conclusions: Thermal variability had an overriding importance in driving elevational range sizes of woody plants in the Central Andes. Moreover, the relationship between thermal variability and range size might be even stronger in warmer regions, underlining the potential vulnerability of tropical montane floras to the effects of global warming
Files in this item
Google Scholar:Montaño-Centellas, Flavia
-
Fuentes, Alfredo F.
-
Cayola, Leslie
-
Macía Barco, Manuel Juan
-
Arellano, Gabriel
-
Loza, M. Isabel
-
Nieto-Ariza, Beatriz
-
Tello, J. Sebastián
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
FunAndes – A functional trait database of Andean plants
Báez, Selene; Cayuela, Luis; Macía Barco, Manuel Juan; Álvarez-Dávila, Esteban; Apaza-Quevedo, Amira; Arnelas, Itziar; Baca-Cortes, Natalia; Bañares de Dios, Guillermo; Bauters, Marijn; Ben Saadi, Celina Tawes; Blundo, Cecilia; Cabrera, Marian; Castaño, Felipe; Cayola, Leslie; de Aledo, Julia G.; Espinosa, Carlos Iván; Fadrique, Belén; Farfán-Rios, William; Fuentes, Alfredo; Garnica-Díaz, Claudia; González, Mailyn; González, Diego; Hensen, Isabell; Hurtado, Ana Belén; Jadán, Oswaldo; Lippok, Denis; Loza, M. Isabel; Maldonado, Carla; Malizia, Lucio; Matas-Granados, Laura; Myers, Jonathan A.; Norden, Natalia; Oliveras Menor, Imma; Pierick, Kerstin; Ramírez-Angulo, Hirma; Salgado-Negret, Beatriz; Schleuning, Matthias; Silman, Miles; Solarte-Cruz, María Elena; Tello, J. Sebastián; Verbeeck, Hans; Vilanova, Emilio; Weithmann, Greta; Homeier, Jürgen
2022-08-20