Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2015 May;18(5):433-40. doi: 10.1111/ele.12422. Epub 2015 Mar 23.
By employing a recently inferred phylogeny and museum occurrence records, we examine the relationship of ecological niche evolution to diversification in the largest family of songbirds, the tanagers (Thraupidae). We test whether differences in species numbers in the major clades of tanagers can be explained by differences in rate of climatic niche evolution. We develop a methodological pipeline to process and filter occurrence records. We find that, of the ecological variables examined, clade richness is higher in clades with higher climatic niche rate, and that this rate is also greater for clades that occupy a greater extent of climatic space. Additionally, we find that more speciose clades contain species with narrower niche breadths, suggesting that clades in which species are more successful at diversifying across climatic gradients have greater potential for speciation or are more buffered from the risk of extinction.
利用最近推断的系统发育关系和博物馆出现记录，我们研究了鸣禽中最大的家族——唐纳雀科（Thraupidae）的生态位进化与多样化之间的关系。我们检验了唐纳雀科主要分支的物种数量差异是否可以用气候生态位进化速率的差异来解释。我们开发了一种方法学管道来处理和筛选出现记录。我们发现，在所研究的生态变量中，在气候生态位进化速率较高的分支中，分支丰富度更高，并且占据更大气候空间的分支的进化速率也更高。此外，我们发现物种更丰富的分支包含生态位宽度更窄的物种，这表明在物种在跨越气候梯度多样化方面更成功的分支中，具有更大的物种形成潜力或更能免受灭绝风险的影响。
