Postglacial recolonization of North America by spadefoot toads: integrating niche and corridor modeling to study species’ range dynamics over geologic time

Understanding the factors that shape species’ distributions is a key topic in biogeography. As climates change, species can either cope with these changes through evolution, plasticity or by shifting their ranges to track the optimal climatic conditions. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) is a widespread technique in biogeography that estimates the niche of the organism by using occurrences and environmental data to estimate species’ potential distributions. ENMs are often criticized for failing to take species’ dispersal abilities into consideration. Here, we attempt to fill this gap by combining ENMs with dispersal and corridor modeling to study the range dynamics of North American spadefoot toads (Scaphiopodidae) over the Holocene. We first estimated the current and past distributions of spadefoot toads and then estimated their past distributions from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the present day. Then, we estimated how each taxon recolonized North American by using dispersal and co...

阐明塑造物种分布格局的影响因素，是生物地理学领域的核心研究议题之一。随着气候发生变化，物种可通过演化、表型可塑性，或是主动调整分布范围以追踪适宜气候条件等方式应对气候变化。生态位模型（Ecological Niche Modeling, ENM）是生物地理学中应用广泛的技术手段，其通过物种出现记录与环境数据估算物种的生态位，进而推导其潜在分布范围。现有生态位模型常因未考虑物种的扩散能力而受到诟病。本研究尝试弥补这一研究空白：我们将生态位模型与扩散、廊道模型相结合，针对全新世时期北美锄足蟾科（Scaphiopodidae）物种的分布动态展开研究。我们首先估算了锄足蟾科物种的当前与历史分布范围，随后重建了其自末次盛冰期（Last Glacial Maximum, LGM）至今的历史分布演化过程。随后，我们借助扩散模型与[原文未完成内容]，估算了各分类群重新定殖北美大陆的具体过程。