Gorel Anaïs-Pasiphaé, Hardy Olivier J, Dauby Gilles, Dexter Kyle G, Segovia Ricardo A, Steppe Kathy, Fayolle Adeline
Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Department of Plants and Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Faculté Des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Ecol Lett. 2022 May;25(5):1164-1176. doi: 10.1111/ele.13985. Epub 2022 Mar 1.
Climatic niche evolution during the diversification of tropical plants has received little attention in Africa. To address this, we characterised the climatic niche of >4000 tropical African woody species, distinguishing two broad bioclimatic groups (forest vs. savanna) and six subgroups. We quantified niche conservatism versus lability at the genus level and for higher clades, using a molecular phylogeny of >800 genera. Although niche stasis at speciation is prevalent, numerous clades individually cover vast climatic spaces suggesting a general ease in transcending ecological limits, especially across bioclimatic subgroups. The forest biome was the main source of diversity, providing many lineages to savanna, but reverse shifts also occurred. We identified clades that diversified in savanna after shifts from forest. The forest-savanna transition was not consistently associated with a growth form change, though we found evolutionarily labile clades whose presence in forest or savanna is associated respectively with climbing or shrubby species diversification.
热带植物多样化过程中的气候生态位演化在非洲很少受到关注。为了解决这个问题，我们对4000多种热带非洲木本植物的气候生态位进行了特征描述，区分了两个广泛的生物气候组（森林与稀树草原）和六个亚组。我们利用800多个属的分子系统发育，在属水平和更高的分支水平上量化了生态位保守性与易变性。虽然物种形成时的生态位静态普遍存在，但许多分支个体覆盖了广阔的气候空间，这表明跨越生态界限总体较为容易，尤其是在生物气候亚组之间。森林生物群落是多样性的主要来源，为稀树草原提供了许多谱系，但也发生了反向转变。我们确定了从森林转变后在稀树草原中多样化的分支。森林 - 稀树草原过渡与生长形式变化并非始终相关，尽管我们发现了进化上易变的分支，它们在森林或稀树草原中的存在分别与攀缘或灌木物种的多样化相关。
