title: Macroevolutionary consequences of profound climate change on niche evolution in marine molluscs over the past three million years.
abstract: In order to predict the fate of biodiversity in a rapidly changing world, we must first understand how species adapt to new environmental conditions. The long-term evolutionary dynamics of species' physiological tolerances to differing climatic regimes remain obscure. Here, we unite palaeontological and neontological data to analyse whether species' environmental tolerances remain stable across 3 Myr of profound climatic changes using 10 phylogenetically, ecologically and developmentally diverse mollusc species from the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains, USA. We additionally investigate whether these species' upper and lower thermal tolerances are constrained across this interval. We find that these species' environmental preferences are stable across the duration of their lifetimes, even when faced with significant environmental perturbations. The results suggest that species will respond to current and future warming either by altering distributions to track suitable habitat or, if the pace of change is too rapid, by going extinct. Our findings also support methods that project species' present-day environmental requirements to future climatic landscapes to assess conservation risks.
authors.affiliation: Biodiversity Institute and Department of Geology, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Boulevard, Room 120 Lindley Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, 210 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, USA eesaupe@gmail.com.
authors.forename: E E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Saupe
authors.affiliation: Department of Geology, San José State University, Duncan Hall 321, San José, CA 95192, USA Paleontological Research Institution, 1259 Trumansburg Road, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hendricks
authors.affiliation: Division of Invertebrate Paleontology, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, 1659 Museum Road, PO Box 117800, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Portell
authors.affiliation: US Geological Survey, 926A National Center, Reston, VA 20192, USA.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Dowsett
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Haywood
authors.affiliation: Sellwood Group for Palaeo-Climatology, School of Earth and Environment, Room 9.127, Earth and Environment Building, University of Leeds, West Yorkshire LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.affiliation: Biodiversity Institute and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Dyche Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Lieberman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D008974:Mollusca / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D014481:United States
keywords: Atlantic coastal plain; Mollusca; conservation palaeobiology; fundamental niche; macroevolution; mid-Pliocene warm period