Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 470; no. 7335; pp. 531 - 534
• Main Authors: Thuiller, Wilfried, Lavergne, Sébastien, Roquet, Cristina, Boulangeat, Isabelle, Lafourcade, Bruno, Araujo, Miguel. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 24.02.2011; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Biodiversity; Biological and medical sciences; Birds; Cladding; Climate Change; Climatic changes; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Conservation of natural resources; Earth, ocean, space; Endangered & extinct species; Endangered species; Europe; Evolution; Evolutionary; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Extinction, Biological; Forecasts and trends; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gain; Genetic diversity; Homogenizing; Human Activities; Humanities and Social Sciences; Influence; letter; Mammals; Management; Mathematical models; Meteorology; Models, Theoretical; multidisciplinary; Phylogeny; Plants; Reduction; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Species Specificity; Synecology; Terrestrial ecosystems; Threatened species; Trees; Europe; Dynamical climatology; Climate change; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Geographic distribution; Phylogeny; Aves; Biodiversity; Vegetal kingdom; Animal kingdom
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/nature09705

European movements Extinction episodes, such as the anthropogenic one widely thought to be under way right now, result in a pruned tree of life. The possibility that further non-random extinctions across the tree of life could arise as a consequence of climate change has been investigated quantitatively using a series of projections of the phylogenetic diversity of European plants, birds and mammals. The overall effect is a thinning of the tree, with little loss of diversity. However, there are differences in the responses of northern and southern European species. For instance, France and Spain are more exposed to losses of phylogenetic diversity than high-latitude and high-altitude regions, where phylogenetic diversity is projected to increase. Many species are projected to become vulnerable to twenty-first-century climate changes 1 , 2 , with consequent effects on the tree of life. If losses were not randomly distributed across the tree of life, climate change could lead to a disproportionate loss of evolutionary history 3 , 4 , 5 . Here we estimate the consequences of climate change on the phylogenetic diversities of plant, bird and mammal assemblages across Europe. Using a consensus across ensembles of forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2080 and high-resolution phylogenetic trees, we show that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies. Such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions. This is because vulnerable species have neither fewer nor closer relatives than the remaining clades. Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent.