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Phylogenetic biome conservatism on a global scale

Nature volume 458, pages 754–756 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

How and why organisms are distributed as they are has long intrigued evolutionary biologists1,2,3,4. The tendency for species to retain their ancestral ecology has been demonstrated in distributions on local and regional scales5,6,7, but the extent of ecological conservatism over tens of millions of years and across continents has not been assessed8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we show that biome stasis at speciation has outweighed biome shifts by a ratio of more than 25:1, by inferring ancestral biomes for an ecologically diverse sample of more than 11,000 plant species from around the Southern Hemisphere. Stasis was also prevalent in transocean colonizations. Availability of a suitable biome could have substantially influenced which lineages establish on more than one landmass, in addition to the influence of the rarity of the dispersal events themselves. Conversely, the taxonomic composition of biomes has probably been strongly influenced by the rarity of species’ transitions between biomes. This study has implications for the future because if clades have inherently limited capacity to shift biomes13, then their evolutionary potential could be strongly compromised by biome contraction as climate changes.

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Figure 1: Biome shifts within landmasses.
Figure 2: Biome conservatism in transoceanic plant colonizations around the Southern Hemisphere.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Australian Research Council-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function for facilitating this collaboration. Participation by M.A.G. and P.W. was supported in part by a grant from the US National Science Foundation.

Author Contributions All authors participated in two workshops where the phylogenetic and biome data were initially compiled. All authors participated in analysis and interpretation at the workshops and subsequently by email. M.W. designed and facilitated the study. M.A.G., G.J.J. and P.W. provided palaeobotanical dates. M.D.C. drafted the paper in collaboration with H.P.L., and provided supplementary statistical analyses during review.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Botany and Zoology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia ,

    Michael D. Crisp

  2. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, University of Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile ,

    Mary T. K. Arroyo

  3. School of Integrative Biology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia ,

    Lyn G. Cook

  4. Department of Plant Biology, L. H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA,

    Maria A. Gandolfo

  5. School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia ,

    Gregory J. Jordan

  6. Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand ,

    Matt S. McGlone

  7. National Herbarium of New South Wales, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney, New South Wales 2000, Australia ,

    Peter H. Weston

  8. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia,

    Mark Westoby

  9. Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA,

    Peter Wilf

  10. Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Zurich 8008, Switzerland

    H. Peter Linder

Authors
  1. Michael D. Crisp
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael D. Crisp.

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Crisp, M., Arroyo, M., Cook, L. et al. Phylogenetic biome conservatism on a global scale. Nature 458, 754–756 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07764

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