Abstract
Exploring shifts in the climatic niches of introduced species can provide significant insight into the mechanisms underlying the invasion process and the associated impacts on biodiversity. We aim to test the phylogenetic signal hypothesis in native and introduced species in Europe by examining climatic niche similarity. We examined data from 134 ant species commonly found in western Europe; 130 were native species, and 4 were introduced species. We characterized their distribution patterns using species records from different databases, determined their phylogenetic relatedness, and tested for a phylogenetic signal in their optimal climatic niches. We then compared the introduced species’ climatic niches in Europe with their climatic niches in their native ranges and with the climatic niches of their closest relative species in Europe. We found a strong phylogenetic signal in the optimal climatic niches of the most common ant species in Europe; however, this signal was weak for the main climatic variables that affect the distributions of introduced versus native species. Also, introduced species occupied different climatic niches in Europe than in their native ranges; furthermore, their European climatic niches did not resemble those of their closest relative species in Europe. We further discovered that there was not much concordance between the climatic niches of introduced species in their native ranges and climatic conditions in Europe. Our findings suggest that phylogenetics do indeed constrain shifts in the climatic niches of native European ant species. However, introduced species would not face such constraints and seemed to occupy relatively empty climatic niches.
Highlights
Exploring shifts in the climatic niches of introduced species can provide significant insight into the mechanisms underlying the invasion process and the associated impacts on biodiversity
Axis 1 explained 62% of the variance and distinguished species typically found in warm, dry areas with high precipitation seasonality from species typically found in cold areas with low precipitation seasonality
Even though the four introduced ant species belong to different and distantly related clades (Fig. 1), three of them (L. humile, P. megacephala, and C. emeryi) were clustered near to each other but far away from the other species within the climatic niche space represented in the PCA analysis; this distance was especially apparent along axis 2 (Fig. 2a)
Summary
Exploring shifts in the climatic niches of introduced species can provide significant insight into the mechanisms underlying the invasion process and the associated impacts on biodiversity. Species introductions can provide natural experiments for testing whether a species’ climatic niche in its introduced range is a consequence of phylogenetic constraints, plasticity, or evolutionary shifts in response to novel pressures[30,31,32,33]). Should perform well under the same climatic conditions as their closest relative species in their introduced ranges In such a case, and since competition should be strong between phylogenetically close s pecies[35], there could be dramatic consequences for biodiversity conservation. That said, introduced species and their closest relative species in their introduced ranges could display disparate climatic niches given that the two might have evolved in different biogeographical areas and under different climatic conditions; introduced species could have nearly the same climatic niches as in their native ranges[17]. Given that they likely experience evolutionary niche expansion as their introduced ranges e xpand[31,36,37] and they face colonization c onstraints[33,38], we might expect introduced species to move into new climatic niches, which could be different from those in their native ranges and from those of their closest relative species in their introduced ranges
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