Abstract Detail



Macroevolution

Coca, Marina [1], Valcarcel, Virginia [2], Garcia, Nagore [1].

Uncertainty of climatic classification systems: Transitional zones and its influence in evolutionary studies .

Environmental preferences of the extant lineages provide valuable information to better understand their evolutionary histories. But environmental characterization is often based on average climatic conditions of the lineage’s occurrences or broad climatic regionalization and tend to overlook the climatic variability. This is specially so when using climatic regionalizations because they establish abrupt limits that do not account for the transitional zones between-regions in which climatic variability is usually high and different from the region’s average. Even more so if the lineages under study develop partially or entirely at transitional areas.  However, we know little about the extent of the transitional areas in the globe and their impact in the evolutionary inferences done. In this study we aim to analyse the distribution and extent of the transitional areas and to establish the potential impact of unaccounted climatic variability in evolutionary studies. To do so we study five of the most used bioclimatic classifications and analyse the impact of using those classifications on reconstructions in the Asian Palmate Group (AsPG) of the Araliaceae. To study the extent of the transitional areas we performed Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of climatic data extracted from the Worldclim database and measure the overlap between climatic zones, for each classification. Transitional climate zones are identified as areas with climatic values that lay within the quartiles 10 and 90 of contiguous climatic zones vs. pure climate zones which have climatic conditions that do not overlap. Based on this, all zones of each classification have been divided in two categories (pure and non-pure climate) and mapped to determine their geographical distribution. We show a large overlap between climatic zones irrespective of the classification. In Australia and the New World, the transitional zones are geographically restricted to contact limits between pure climate zones, whereas the transitional zones in the Old World and are not restricted to the border between pure climate zones but spread within the core of pure climate zones. Our results also reveal that most of the tropical-temperate shifts in the AsPG involved genera from non-pure climate zones either tropical or temperate. This provides a novel perspective on the evolutionary history of the AsPG, a group in which shifts between climatic preferences seems to have driven its early evolution.


Related Links:
http://peaselab.github.io


1 - Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Biology, C/ Darwin 2, 28049 Madrid, Spain, Madrid, Madrid, 28049, EspaƱa
2 - Universidad Autonoma De Madrid, Molecular Biology, Campus De Canto Blanco. Fac. Ciencias., Calle Darwin, 2 (Edif. Biologia, Botanica), Madrid, 28049, Spain

Keywords:
evolution
climate
Transitional zones.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P, Macroevolution Posters
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 2020
Time: 5:00 PM Time and date to be determined
Number: PMC001
Abstract ID:401
Candidate for Awards:None


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