Climatic niche shifts and ecological sky‐island dynamics in Mesoamerican montane birds

• Published in: Ecology and evolution 2024-09, Vol.14 (9), p.e70236-n/a
• Main Authors: Rocha‐Méndez, Alberto, Prieto‐Torres, David A., Sánchez‐González, Luis A., Navarro‐Sigüenza, Adolfo G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Biogeography; Birds; Chlorospingus; Climatic conditions; ecological niche modeling; Ecological niches; Ecological research; Eupherusa; Evolution; Evolutionary Ecology; Forest management; Forests; Geography; Hypotheses; moist forest model; Montane environments; Mountain forests; neotropical birds; niche conservatism; Niche overlap; Niches; Ordination; Phylogeography; Pleistocene; Range extension; Tropical forests; Zoology
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70236

An ongoing challenge in evolutionary and ecological research focuses on testing biogeographic hypotheses for the understanding of both species' distributional patterns and of the factors influencing range limits. In this study, we described the climatic niches of Neotropical humid montane forest birds through the analysis of factors driving their evolution at inter‐ and intraspecific levels; and tested for differences among allopatric lineages within Aulacorhynchus, Chlorospingus, Cardellina, and Eupherusa. We employed ecological niche models (ENMs) along with an ordination approach with kernel smoothing to perform niche overlap analyses and test hypotheses of niche equivalence/similarity among lineages. In addition, we described the potential distributions of each lineage during the Late Pleistocene climate fluctuations, identifying historical range expansions, connectivity, and stability. Overall, we observed differences in environmental variables influencing climatic requirements and distributional patterns for our selected species. We detected the highest values of niche overlap mainly between Eupherusa and some Chlorospingus lineages. At both interspecific and intraspecific levels, sister lineages showed non‐identical environmental niches. Our results offer weak support to a moist forest model, in which populations followed the expansion and contraction cycles of montane forests, leading to a lack of niche conservatism among lineages (they tend to occupy not identical climatic environments) throughout Mesoamerica. Therefore, historical climatic conditions may act as ecological barriers determining the distributional ranges of these species. We describe climatic niche of four Neotropical montane birds through the analysis of climatic factors driving their evolution at inter‐ and intraspecific levels. We tested for differences among lineages within four taxa (Aulacorhynchus, Chlorospingus, Cardellina, and Eupherusa), all associated to Mesoamerican humid montane forests. Our results, as a combination of environmental and geographical frameworks, support that these taxa which inhabit similar areas examined at distinct hierarchy levels tend to occupy not identical, but somewhat similar, climatic environments, and the lack of niche conservatism.