Science
Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Published: September 2019
Mountain regions are unusually biodiverse, with rich aggregations of small-ranged species that form centers of endemism. Mountains play an array of roles for Earth's biodiversity and affect neighboring lowlands through biotic interchange, changes in regional climate, and nutrient runoff. The high biodiversity of certain mountains reflects the interplay of multiple evolutionary mechanisms: enhanced speciation rates with distinct opportunities for coexistence and persistence of lineages, shaped by long-term climatic changes interacting with topographically dynamic landscapes. High diversity in most tropical mountains is tightly linked to bedrock geology-notably, areas comprising mafic and ultramafic lithologies, rock types rich in magnesium and poor in phosphate that present special requirements for plant physiology. Mountain biodiversity bears the signature of deep-time evolutionary and ecological processes, a history well worth preserving.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aax0151 | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
January 2025
Department of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
The evolutionary history underlying gradients in species richness is still subject to discussions and understanding the past niche evolution might be crucial in estimating the potential of taxa to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this study we intend to contribute to elucidation of the evolutionary history of liverwort species richness distributions along elevational gradients at a global scale. For this purpose, we linked a comprehensive data set of genus occurrences on mountains worldwide with a time-calibrated phylogeny of liverworts and estimated mean diversification rates (DivElev) and mean ages (AgeElev) of the respective genera per elevational band.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Total Environ
January 2025
School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia; The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia; Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Center for Global Mountain Biodiversity, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Electronic address:
Human overexploitation contributed strongly to the loss of hundreds of bird species across Oceania, including nine giant, flightless birds called moa. The inevitability of anthropogenic moa extinctions in New Zealand has been fiercely debated. However, we can now rigorously evaluate their extinction drivers using spatially explicit demographic models capturing species-specific interactions between moa, natural climates and landscapes, and human colonists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
Departamento de Ciencias Jurídicas, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja 1101608, Ecuador.
Epiphytic bryophytes are an important component in terms of the diversity and functioning of montane forests known as biodiversity hotspots. Bryophytes are highly dependent on their external environments because they are sensitive to environmental changes related to disturbance, fragmentation, air pollution, and climate change. The richness and composition of bryophytes in remnants of primary and secondary forests were analyzed, where the richness and cover were recorded on trunk bases of 120 trees.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPathogens
January 2025
Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Globally, forests are constantly threatened by a plethora of disturbances of natural and anthropogenic origin, such as climate change, forest fires, urbanization, and pollution. Besides the most common stressors, during the last few years, Portuguese forests have been impacted by severe decline phenomena caused by invasive pathogens, many of which belong to the genus . The genus includes a large number of species that are invading forest ecosystems worldwide, chiefly as a consequence of global trade and human activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
January 2025
Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing Laboratory (Silva Lab), School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, P.O. Box 110410, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
Developing the capacity to monitor species diversity worldwide is of great importance in halting biodiversity loss. To this end, remote sensing plays a unique role. In this study, we evaluate the potential of Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) data, combined with conventional satellite optical imagery and climate reanalysis data, to predict in situ alpha diversity (Species richness, Simpson index, and Shannon index) among tree species.
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