Biodiversity Informatics Training Curriculum: Chris Yesson Seminar on Phyloclimatic Modeling, Part 3
Channel: A. Townsend Peterson
Date: 2012-10-16

Phyloclimatic Modelling and Evolutionary Processes

Dr. Christopher Yesson
Institute of Zoology
Zoological Society of London

In English

Past changes in climate are hypothesised to have had a major influence on the diversification of many groups of plants and animals. In these cases it should be possible to detect the footprint of palaeohistoric climate change on the evolutionary history of organisms. We have several tools at our disposal to detect these patterns.  Ecologicial niche models are used to describe a species' environmental preferences and phylogenetic reconstruction estimates species' relationships and evolutionary history.  The term 'Phyloclimatic Modelling' was coined to describe the combination of these techniques to attempt the reconstruction of ancestral niches. We describe the methodology of phyloclimatic modelling, discuss the data requirements and present a number of case studies, predominantly from Mediterranean plant groups. These mediterranean specialists diversified during or shortly after the development of the summer-dry, winter-wet biomes and demonstrate clear patterns of phylogenetic conservancy for many climatic parameters.  These data are used to reconstruct ancestral niches and are combined with palaeo-historic climate data to estimate ancestral areas. These ancestral area predictions demonstrate that climatically suitable areas existed nearby to present-day distributions. It is likely that the long-term stability of these climatic biomes has permitted a gradual diversification. Climate change has played an important role for the evolution of many organisms, but the picture is complex and other more local-scale factors played significant roles in the diversification of many groups.