We hypothesize that fire has influenced Erica communities in the Bale Mountains at millennial time-scales. To test this, we (1) identify the fire history of the Bale Mountains through a pollen and charcoal record from Garba Guracha, a lake at 3950 m.a.s.l., and (2) describe the long-term bidirectional feedback between wildfire and Erica, which may control the ecosystem's resilience.
The goals of this study are to provide a map of actual habitat suitability (1), describe the relationships between abiotic predictors and the saguaro distribution at regional extents (2), and describe the potential effect of climate change on the spatial distribution of the saguaro (3).
Here we investigated the demographic history of the willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus), rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta), and black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) through the Late Pleistocene using two complementary methods and whole genome data. Species distribution modeling (SDM) allowed us to estimate the total range size during the Last Interglacial (LIG) and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) as well as to indicate potential population subdivisions.
Our results show that phylogenetically diverse assemblages with large phylogenetic age differences among species are associated with relatively high long‐term climate stability, with intra‐regional links between long‐term climate variability and phylogenetic composition especially strong in the more unstable regions. These findings point to future climate change as a key risk to the preservation of the phylogenetically diverse assemblages in regions characterized by relatively high paleoclimate stability, with China as a key example.
In this study, for the first time, we linked the distribution of threatened species across China to current and historical changes in human population densities, cropland area, and pasture area since 1700 (at a 100 km × 100 km resolution). We find that variables describing historical changes in human impacts were consistently more strongly associated with proportions of threatened plants than variables describing current changes in human impacts. Notably, threatened plant species in China tend to be concentrated where historical anthropogenic impacts were relatively small, but anthropogenic activities have intensified relatively strongly since 1700.
This paper [was highlighted in the *Editor's Picks* section of the Science Journal](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6k308eczv7i6kbj/2017_BMB_Journal_of_Biogeography_editors_choice.pdf?dl=1), and was among the [top downloaded articles](https://www.dropbox.com/s/sowq1h4bdngmipy/2017_BMB_Journal_of_Biogeography.png?dl=1) from the *Journal of Biogeography* during the 12 months after its publication.
Our results are inconsistent with the claim that climatic constraint and/or a lack of suitable habitats can fully explain the absence of Neanderthals in Southern Scandinavia during the Eemian Interglacial and Early Weichselian Glaciation. We do, however, find evidence that a geographic barrier may have impeded northerly migrations during the Eemian.
Intuitively, interannual spring temperature variability (STV) should influence the leaf‐out strategies of temperate zone woody species, with high winter chilling requirements in species from regions where spring warming varies greatly among years. We tested this hypothesis using experiments in 215 species and leaf‐out monitoring in 1585 species from East Asia (EA), Europe (EU) and North America (NA). The results reveal that species from regions with high STV indeed have higher winter chilling requirements, and, when grown under the same conditions, leaf out later than related species from regions with lower STV. Since 1900, STV has been consistently higher in NA than in EU and EA, and under experimentally short winter conditions NA species required 84% more spring warming for bud break, EU ones 49% and EA ones only 1%. These previously unknown continental‐scale differences in phenological strategies underscore the need for considering regional climate histories in global change models.
Our results do not support previous ideas about phenological strategies in temperate woody species (the ‘high temperature variability’ hypothesis; the ‘oceanic climate’ hypothesis; the ‘high latitude’ hypothesis). In regions with long winters, trees appear to rely on cues other than day length, such as winter chilling and spring warming. By contrast, in regions with short winters, some species—mostly from lineages with a warm-temperate or subtropical background, for example, Fagus additionally rely on photoperiodism. Therefore, photoperiod may be expected to constrain climate-driven shifts in spring leaf unfolding only at lower latitudes.
Paleoecology provides a valuable perspective on coarse‐filter strategies by marshaling the natural experiments of the past to contextualize extinction risk due to the emerging impacts of climate change and anthropogenic threats. We reviewed examples from the paleoecological record that highlight the strengths, opportunities, and caveats of a CNS approach. We focused on the near‐time geological past of the Quaternary, during which species were subjected to widespread changes in climate and concomitant changes in the physical environment in general.