Comparison of climate space and phylogeny of Marmota (Mammalia: Rodentia) indicates a connection between evolutionary history and climate preference.

Résumé

Palaeobiologists have investigated the evolutionary responses to extinct organisms to climate change, and have also used extinct organisms to reconstruct palaeoclimates. There is evidence of a disconnection between climate change and evolution that suggest that organism may not be accurate paleoclimate indicators. Here, marmots (Marmota sp.) are used as a case study to examine whether similarity of climate preferences is correlated with evolutionary relatedness of species. This study tests for a relationship between phylogenetic distance and 'climate distance' of species with a clade. There should be a significant congruence between maximus likelihood distance and standardized Euclidian distance between climates if daughter species tend to say in environments similar to parent species. Marmots make a good test case because there are many extant species, their phylogenetics are well established and individual survival is linked to climatic factors. A Mantel test indicates a significant correlation between climate and phylogenetic distance matrices, but this relationship explains only a small fraction of the variance (regression R(2) = 0.114). These results that (i) closely related species of marmots tend to stay in similar environments; (ii) marmots may be more susceptible than may mammals to global climate change; and (iii) because of the considerable noise in this system, the correlation cannot be used for detailed palaeoclimate reconstruction.