Journal article

PHYLOGENETIC CONSTRAINTS IN KEY FUNCTIONAL TRAITS BEHIND SPECIES' CLIMATE NICHES: PATTERNS OF DESICCATION AND COLD RESISTANCE ACROSS 95 DROSOPHILA SPECIES

Vanessa Kellermann, Volker Loeschcke, Ary A Hoffmann, Torsten Nygaard Kristensen, Camilla Flojgaard, Jean R David, Jens-Christian Svenning, Johannes Overgaard

EVOLUTION | WILEY | Published : 2012

Abstract

Species distributions are often constrained by climatic tolerances that are ultimately determined by evolutionary history and/or adaptive capacity, but these factors have rarely been partitioned. Here, we experimentally determined two key climatic niche traits (desiccation and cold resistance) for 92-95 Drosophila species and assessed their importance for geographic distributions, while controlling for acclimation, phylogeny, and spatial autocorrelation. Employing an array of phylogenetic analyses, we documented moderate-to-strong phylogenetic signal in both desiccation and cold resistance. Desiccation and cold resistance were clearly linked to species distributions because significant assoc..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank K. van der Linde for providing her phylogeny files, A. Hoikkala, F. Norry, and M. Watada from EHIME Drosophila Stock Center for providing flies, T. Hansen for useful discussions, J. Wit, P. Sarup, P. G. Henriksen, A. Bang, and D. Andersen for technical assistance, and the Danish Natural Sciences Research Council for financial support to VL, TNK, and JO.