Data from: Are species’ responses to global change predicted by past niche evolution?

Predicting how and when adaptive evolution might rescue species from global change, and integrating this process into tools of biodiversity forecasting, has now become an urgent task. Here we explored whether recent population trends of species can be explained by their past rate of niche evolution, which can be inferred from increasingly available phylogenetic and niche data. We examined the assemblage of 409 European bird species for which estimates of demographic trends between 1970 and 2000 are available, along with a species-level phylogeny and data on climatic, habitat, and trophic niches. We found that species’ proneness to demographic decline is associated with slow evolution of the habitat niche in the past, in addition to certain current-day life history and ecological traits. A similar result was found at a higher taxonomic level, where families prone to decline have had a history of slower evolution of climatic and habitat niches. Our results support the view that niche conservatism can prevent some species from coping with environmental change. Thus, linking patterns of past niche evolution and contemporary species dynamics for large species samples may provide insights into how niche evolution may rescue certain lineages in the face of global change.

预测适应性演化如何、何时能帮助物种摆脱全球变化的影响，并将该过程整合进生物多样性预测工具中，现已成为一项紧迫任务。本研究旨在探究物种近期的种群动态趋势，是否可通过其过往的生态位（niche）演化速率加以解释——该演化速率可从日益丰富的系统发育与生态位数据中推断得到。我们针对409种欧洲鸟类展开分析：这些物种拥有1970年至2000年间的种群动态趋势估算数据，同时具备物种级系统发育树，以及气候、栖息地与营养生态位相关数据。研究发现，除部分现存的生活史与生态特征外，物种种群衰退的易感性与其过往栖息地生态位的缓慢演化速率显著相关。在更高的分类学层级上也得到了相似结果：易发生衰退的鸟类科类群，其过往的气候与栖息地生态位演化速率均较为缓慢。本研究结果支持如下观点：生态位保守性（niche conservatism）会阻碍部分物种适应环境变化。因此，针对大样本物种集合，将过往生态位演化模式与当代种群动态相关联，或可帮助我们理解在全球变化背景下，生态位演化如何助力特定演化支存续。