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Ecological Niche Conservatism in Doucs (Genus Pygathrix)

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Abstract

The impressive diversity and unique distribution of primate taxa in Southeast Asia creates a region of interesting biogeography and evolutionary history that remains poorly understood. The three species in the Asian colobine genus Pygathrix (P. cinerea, P. nemaeus, and P. nigripes) appear to follow the unique distribution pattern, replacing one another along the north–south axis. However, the evolutionary history and taxonomic status within Pygathrix is currently debated. We constructed climate-based ecological niche models (ENMs) for the three species, using six environmental variables, to confirm that the bioclimate envelopes of Pygathrix cinerea, P. nemaeus, and P. nigripes follow the north–south gradient. We also used the ENMs to test whether the three species lack ecological exchangeability, meaning differentiation among factors that define the fundamental niche, and whether they exhibit ecological niche conservatism, or the tendency for related species to differ less ecologically than might be expected by the climate available to each species. Our ENMs for Pygathrix followed a north–south gradient as expected, with P. nemaeus extending from ca. 14°N to 21°N, P. cinerea from 14°N to 16°N, and P. nigripes from 11°N to 13.5°N. This study presents the first use of ENMs for doucs that yield significant predictive ability based only on climatic variables. The models are significantly different for all three species, supporting a lack of ecological exchangeability between them, as well as the recent elevation of Pygathrix cinerea to species status. Importantly, Pygathrix cinerea and P. nemaeus show evidence of ecological niche conservatism, which lends support to the occurrence of an allopatric speciation event. This result also suggests that the current overlapping distribution of Pygathrix cinerea and P. nemaeus is the result of secondary contact. The north–south distribution gradient, which exists in similar form among other groups of sister taxa in the region, may be attributed to a zoogeographic barrier, vicariance, or current or historical climatic shifts.

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Acknowledgments

We thank R. Pearson, F. Corsi, and M. Cords for their comments on early drafts of this manuscript. We also thank Joanna Setchell and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. We thank N. Horning for his advice and T. Nadler for providing assistance with N. Bett’s thesis research.

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  1. Nolan N. Bett

    Present address: Department of Forest Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Nolan N. Bett & Mary E. Blair

  2. Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA

    Mary E. Blair & Eleanor J. Sterling

  3. New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA

    Mary E. Blair

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Bett, N.N., Blair, M.E. & Sterling, E.J. Ecological Niche Conservatism in Doucs (Genus Pygathrix). Int J Primatol 33, 972–988 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-012-9622-3

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