Abstract
According to a prevailing hypothesis, lowland tropical organisms are unlikely to successfully cross mountain passes because they have neither acclimated nor adapted to the colder temperatures found at higher elevations. However, this expectation assumes that changes in temperature are uniform across space and fails to account for the presence of diverse microclimates created by structurally complex ecosystems, such as rainforests. We collected and analyzed temperature data from Afrotropical, Indomalayan, and Australasian tropical mountain ecosystems to determine the degree of overlap between lowland and upland “thermal regimes” in three selected microenvironments. The thermal regimes of upland and lowland forest canopies overlapped to a greater extent than the thermal regimes of upland and lowland soils or ground‐level sites. Tree‐dwelling animals may therefore be able to bypass temperature constraints imposed by geography by virtue of where they live, which could lead to broader distributions and greater resilience to climatic change and variability as compared with ground‐dwelling species.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.