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Climatic Niche Dynamics and Its Role in the Insular Endemism of Anolis Lizards

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Abstract

Insular systems are usually characterized by have a high species diversity, endemism, and evolutionary uniqueness. Although ecological and evolutionary factors shaping insular diversity and endemism are relatively well established, there is a little understanding about climatic niche dynamics for many insular adaptive radiations. Here, we evaluate the tempo and mode of climatic niche evolution in an iconic insular radiation of lizards. By using an extensive dataset of phylogenetic and coarse-grain climatic niches, we evaluated phylogenetic niche divergence and niche conservatism across temporal and spatial scales in the Caribbean Anolis lizard radiation. We found several instances of niche shifts during the anole radiation across islands. Many of these niche shifts converged to similar climatic regimes between different islands. Furthermore, we find evidence that single-island endemic species are more limited by low suitability of climatic conditions outside its native islands than oceanic barriers due to the high climatic heterogeneity observed at least between Greater Antillean islands. These results suggest that within-lineage climatic niche conservatism has been prevalent in short time scales and likely played a role driving the exceptional insular endemism observed today.

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Acknowledgements

This study was made possible thanks to the devoted effort of all Caribbean herpetologists, particularly those working with anoles, who have documented the diversity of Caribbean Anolis lizards over the last 300 years. JAV was funded by a DGAPA postdoctoral grant from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Conacyt). JAV thanks to Jesús Pinto Ledezma and three anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions to several drafts of this manuscript.

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  1. Museo de Zoología “Alfonso L. Herrera”, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, Mexico city, Mexico

    Julián A. Velasco & Oscar Flores-Villela

  2. Laboratorio de Análisis Espaciales, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, Mexico city, Mexico

    Enrique Martínez-Meyer

  3. Centro del Cambio Global y la Sustentabilidad en el Sureste, AC, 86080, Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico

    Enrique Martínez-Meyer

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  1. Julián A. Velasco
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  2. Enrique Martínez-Meyer
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Velasco, J.A., Martínez-Meyer, E. & Flores-Villela, O. Climatic Niche Dynamics and Its Role in the Insular Endemism of Anolis Lizards. Evol Biol 45, 345–357 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-018-9455-x

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