The effects of island ontogeny on species diversity and phylogeny.
A major goal of island biogeography is to understand how island communities are assembled over time. However, we know little about the influence of variable area and ecological opportunity on island biotas over geological timescales. Islands have limited life spans, and it has been posited that insular diversity patterns should rise and fall with an island's ontogeny. The potential of phylogenies to inform us of island ontogenetic stage remains unclear, as we lack a phylogenetic framework that focuses on islands rather than clades. Here, we present a parsimonious island-centric model that integrates phylogeny and ontogeny into island biogeography and can incorporate a negative feedback of diversity on species origination. This framework allows us to generate predictions about species richness and phylogenies on islands of different ages. We find that peak richness lags behind peak island area, and that endemic species age increases with island age on volcanic islands. When diversity negatively affects rates of immigration and cladogenesis, our model predicts speciation slowdowns on old islands. Importantly, we find that branching times of in situ radiations can be informative of an island's ontogenetic stage. This novel framework provides a quantitative means of uncovering processes responsible for island biogeography patterns using phylogenies.
Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, , Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK, Unit of Evolutionary Biology / Systematic Zoology, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, , Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, Haus 26, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany, Community and Conservation Ecology, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies, University of Groningen, , PO Box 11103, Groningen 9700 CC, The Netherlands, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, , Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.
Luis M
LM
Valente
Rampal S
RS
Etienne
Albert B
AB
Phillimore
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D062312:Islands; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny
endemicity; island biogeography; phylogeny; radiation; volcanic ontogeny