In response to climate change, animals and plants have striking similarities

Mexican leaf frog near Alamos, Mexico.

According to the US "Euryco" website reported on March 24, the latest results of the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution show that although there are fundamental differences in biology, the evolutionary process of plants and animals to cope with global climate change is strikingly similar.

The researchers say the biggest difference between plants and animals is the way they respond to temperature changes. "When the temperature rises, most animals simply move to a cool place to lower their body temperature." Lead author John J. Wiens, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, said, "Plants are different, they have to stay where they are, enduring higher and higher temperatures. ”

Wiens, together with Liu Hui and Ye Ting of the South China Botanical Garden, analyzed climatic data from 952 plant species and 1135 vertebrate species, including flowering plant taxa such as oaks and orchids, as well as major terrestrial vertebrate taxa such as frogs, salamanders and lizards, and mammals.

The team then used climate data and detailed evolutionary trees to test 10 hypotheses about the temperature and precipitation conditions of each species occurring and how those conditions change between species over time. This set of conditions is also known as the "climatic niche" of each species.

Wiens explains that a species' climate niche reflects where it can survive and how it will respond to climate change. Specifically, species with wide climatic niches can be widely distributed under a variety of conditions and may be particularly resilient to climate change. Conversely, species with narrow ecological niches may have a narrow distribution range and are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Understanding climate niches is essential to answering many of the most fundamental and pressing questions in ecology and evolution.

In the study, they found that plants and animals exhibited similar ecological niche evolutionary patterns. Globally, the breadth of the environment that each species can tolerate varies in the same way: in the tropics, plant and animal species can only survive in very narrow temperature ranges, while in temperate regions, plants and animals can survive in very wide temperature ranges. In addition, the climatic niches of plants and animals change at a similar rate over time.

These results help explain many of the basic patterns in nature. For example, different plant and animal species tend to appear at different altitudes. The findings may also help answer why different species emerge in temperate and tropical regions, and why plant and animal species are more abundant in some places.

The study also foreshadows the future impact of climate change on plant and animal species. "Plants and animals have similar niche widths and rates of change, and this finding may help explain why local species extinctions of plants and animals caused by climate change have been similar so far, and why the two populations will have similar levels of future species extinction." "Species with wider niches and faster velocities are more likely to survive climate change for the next 50 years," Wiens said. ”

In addition, the finding that tropical species have a narrower temperature tolerance range helps explain why species extinctions are more frequent in the tropics than in temperate regions, despite the more severe warming conditions faced by high latitudes. The authors also found that both plants and animals seem to have a harder time adapting quickly to higher temperatures and drier conditions than to colder and wetter conditions.

Original Editor: Sky Reviewer: alone Editor:Lei Xinyu

Journal Source: Nature Ecology and Evolution

Issue Number: 2397-334X

Original link: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uoa-paa032420.php

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