TY  - JOUR
A1  - Eyres, Alison
A1  - Eronen, Jussi T.
A1  - Hagen, Oskar
A1  - Böhning-Gaese, Katrin
A1  - Fritz, Susanne A.
T1  - Climatic effects on niche evolution in a passerine bird clade depend on paleoclimate reconstruction method
T2  - Evolution
N2  - Climatic niches describe the climatic conditions in which species can persist. Shifts in climatic niches have been observed to coincide with major climatic change, suggesting that species adapt to new conditions. We test the relationship between rates of climatic niche evolution and paleoclimatic conditions through time for 65 Old-World flycatcher species (Aves: Muscicapidae). We combine niche quantification for all species with dated phylogenies to infer past changes in the rates of niche evolution for temperature and precipitation niches. Paleoclimatic conditions were inferred independently using two datasets: a paleoelevation reconstruction and the mammal fossil record. We find changes in climatic niches through time, but no or weak support for a relationship between niche evolution rates and rates of paleoclimatic change for both temperature and precipitation niche and for both reconstruction methods. In contrast, the inferred relationship between climatic conditions and niche evolution rates depends on paleoclimatic reconstruction method: rates of temperature niche evolution are significantly negatively related to absolute temperatures inferred using the paleoelevation model but not those reconstructed from the fossil record. We suggest that paleoclimatic change might be a weak driver of climatic niche evolution in birds and highlight the need for greater integration of different paleoclimate reconstructions.
KW  - climate change
KW  - macroevolution
KW  - paleobiology
KW  - precipitation
KW  - temperature
KW  - trait evolution
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/61888
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-618887
SN  - 1558-5646
VL  - 75
IS  - 5
SP  - 1046
EP  - 1060
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Oxford
ER  -