Climatic niche conservatism in a clade of disease vectors (Diptera: Phlebotominae)

Sandflies of the family Psychodidae show notable diversity in both disease vector status and climatic niche. Psychodid species’ ranges can be solely tropical, confined to the temperate zones, or span both. We obtained observation site data, and associated climate data, for 223 psychodid species to understand which aspects of climate most closely predict distribution. Temperature and seasonality are strong determinants of species occurrence within the clade. We built a mitochondrial DNA phylogeny of Psychodidae, and found a positive relationship between pairwise genetic distance and climate niche differentiation, which indicates strong niche conservatism. This result is also supported by strong phylogenetic signals of metrics of climate differentiation. Finally, we used ancestral trait reconstruction to infer the tropicality (i.e., proportion of latitudinal range in the tropics minus the proportion of the latitudinal range in temperate areas) of ancestral species, and counted transitions...

毛蠓科（Psychodidae）的白蛉类群在疾病媒介能力与气候生态位两方面均呈现出显著多样性。该科物种的分布范围可仅局限于热带区域、仅分布于温带地带，或同时跨越热带与温带两大区域。本研究收集了223种毛蠓科物种的观测位点数据及其配套气候数据，旨在明确哪些气候要素最能有效预测物种的分布格局。温度与气候季节波动是该演化支内物种分布的关键决定因子。我们构建了毛蠓科的线粒体DNA（mitochondrial DNA）系统发育树，发现物种间的两两遗传距离与气候生态位分化程度呈正相关关系，这表明该类群存在较强的生态位保守性（niche conservatism）。上述结果也得到了气候分化相关指标的强系统发育信号的佐证。最后，我们通过祖先性状重建（ancestral trait reconstruction）方法推断了祖先物种的热带倾向性（即热带区域纬度分布占比减去温带区域纬度分布占比），并统计了演化过渡事件……