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Phylogenetic approaches reveal biodiversity threats under climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 6, pages 1110–1114 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Predicting the consequences of climate change for biodiversity is critical to conservation efforts1,2,3. Extensive range losses have been predicted for thousands of individual species4, but less is known about how climate change might impact whole clades1 and landscape-scale patterns of biodiversity5. Here, we show that climate change scenarios imply significant changes in phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic endemism at a continental scale in Australia using the hyper-diverse clade of eucalypts. We predict that within the next 60 years the vast majority of species distributions (91%) across Australia will shrink in size (on average by 51%) and shift south on the basis of projected suitable climatic space. Geographic areas currently with high phylogenetic diversity and endemism are predicted to change substantially in future climate scenarios. Approximately 90% of the current areas with concentrations of palaeo-endemism6 (that is, places with old evolutionary diversity) are predicted to disappear or shift their location. These findings show that climate change threatens whole clades of the phylogenetic tree, and that the outlined approach can be used to forecast areas of biodiversity losses and continental-scale impacts of climate change.

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Figure 1: Variation in the predicted distribution of the suitable climate space of 657 Australian eucalypt species from 2014 to 2085.
Figure 2: Areas of phylogenetic endemism using categorical analysis of neo- and palaeo-endemism (CANAPE) for 657 species of eucalypts in Australia for projected climate change scenarios at 2014 and 2085.
Figure 3: Effects of projected climate change scenarios, between 2014 and 2085, on species of eucalypts found in current areas of palaeo-endemism across Australia.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the National Environmental Research Program (NERP) for workshop funding, the Bjarne K Dahl Trust for support, and the ARC grant DP130101141 for supporting the eucalypts phylogenetic work. B.D.M. acknowledges a Visiting Fellowship from the Collaborative Research Network for Murray-Darling Basin Futures, University of Canberra in 2013. S.L. was supported by ARC DECRA DE130100565. This manuscript includes work carried out by J.T.M. while serving at the National Science Foundation. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation or the United States Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Applied Ecology and Collaborative Research Network for Murray-Darling Basin Futures, University of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia

    Carlos E. González-Orozco & Bernd Gruber

  2. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria, Corpoica, km 17 Vía Puerto López, Meta 500001, Colombia

    Carlos E. González-Orozco

  3. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d’Écologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000 Grenoble, France

    Laura J. Pollock

  4. CNRS, Laboratoire d’Écologie Alpine (LECA), F-38000 Grenoble, France

    Laura J. Pollock

  5. National Environmental Research Program, School of Biosciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia

    Laura J. Pollock & Heini Kujala

  6. University and Jepson Herbaria, and Dept. of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-2465, USA

    Andrew H. Thornhill & Brent D. Mishler

  7. National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO National Facilities and Collections, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia

    Andrew H. Thornhill, Nunzio Knerr & Joseph T. Miller

  8. Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University, Cairns Queensland 4870, Australia

    Andrew H. Thornhill

  9. Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

    Shawn W. Laffan

  10. Division of Environmental Biology, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 22230, USA

    Joseph T. Miller

  11. Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Acton, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia

    Dan F. Rosauer, Carsten Külheim & Michael D. Crisp

  12. The Australian Museum Research Institute, The Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia

    Daniel P. Faith

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

    David A. Nipperess

  14. Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia

    Simon Linke

  15. ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia 4072, Australia

    Nathalie Butt

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  1. Carlos E. González-Orozco
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Contributions

All authors contributed to project conception. C.E.G.-O., L.J.P., A.H.T., N.K., B.G. and S.W.L. conducted analyses. A.H.T., M.D., C.K. and J.T.M. developed the phylogeny. A.H.T., N.K., C.E.G.-O., L.J.P. and N.B. compiled and corrected species spatial data records. C.E.G.-O. wrote the manuscript draft and all authors contributed to interpretation of the results and writing of the final paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Carlos E. González-Orozco or Bernd Gruber.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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González-Orozco, C., Pollock, L., Thornhill, A. et al. Phylogenetic approaches reveal biodiversity threats under climate change. Nature Clim Change 6, 1110–1114 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3126

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