Asynchronous demographic responses to Pleistocene climate change in Eastern Nearctic vertebrates.

Abstract

Pleistocene climatic cycles altered species distributions in the Eastern Nearctic of North America, yet the degree of congruent demographic response to the Pleistocene among codistributed taxa remains unknown. We use a hierarchical approximate Bayesian computational approach to test if population sizes across lineages of snakes, lizards, turtles, mammals, birds, salamanders and frogs in this region expanded synchronously to Late Pleistocene climate changes. Expansion occurred in 75% of 74 lineages, and of these, population size trajectories across the community were partially synchronous, with coexpansion found in at least 50% of lineages in each taxonomic group. For those taxa expanding outside of these synchronous pulses, factors related to when they entered the community, ecological thresholds or biotic interactions likely condition their timing of response to Pleistocene climate change. Unified timing of population size change across communities in response to Pleistocene climate cycles is likely rare in North America.