vogelwarte.ch BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change by Niklaus. E. Zimmermann Today: Damaris Zurell

Course objectives On successful completion of this module students should be able to: -demonstrate a clear understanding of the ecological niche concept -understand and explain influence of climate on plant distribution -recognize the link between functional ecological adaptation and niche evolution -select and apply appropriate statistical methods to niche modelling in R -apply raster-based spatial analyses in R BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change

Course objectives Lectures and discussions – Written exam Practicals – Labwork and lab report Develop ideas, develop workflows, discuss and report = Learn to be a scientist BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change

Today‘s objectives General introduction to macroecology and macroevolution Concept of ecological niche and spatial modelling Introduction to R First practical Tomorrow: regression, GIS in R BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change

What is macroecology? studies relationships between organisms and their environment seeks to characterize and explain statistical patterns of abundance, distribution, and diversity BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Brown JH Macroecology. Univ. Press, Chicago.

What is macroecology? Analyses of multi-species ecological patterns and processes at large spatial and temporal scales Seeks understanding of ecological systems through studying (emergent) properties of the whole = ‚top-down‘ – Contrast: ‚bottom-up‘ = studying component parts BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Gaston KJ, Blackburn TM Pattern and Process in Macroecology. Blackwell, Oxford.

What is macroecology? BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Biogeography Tries to understand large scale distributions of living things Ecology Tries to understand interactions among organisms and (biotic and abiotic) environment Macroecology Intersects different fields of biology and tries to explain large scale ecological patterns and processes in space and time Evolutionary Biology Tries to understand evolutionary processes that produced diversity of life on Earth Focuses on explanation and model building and not on simple description. Uses natural variation as observed in nature to disentangle process from pattern, and identify general mechanisms or ‘ecological laws’.

What is macroecology? In its early developments, macroecology has been mainly descriptive and only more recently transforms to an analytical explanatory science BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Land plant of Britain from Watson (1859) Description Explanation Local community filters by Thuiller et al. (2013)

Macroecology challenges 1.Integrate past into macroecological analyses, e.g. phylogeny and historical biogeography, to understand underlying reasons for contemporary patterns. 2.Explicit consideration of local processes shaping large-scale patterns to understand fine-grain variability in nature and to facilitate better predictions of future changes. 3.Large-scale, high-quality data from broad spectrum of taxa and regions 4.Develop (ever more) sophisticated statistical analysis techniques e.g. for accounting for sampling bias. BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change After Beck et al. (2012) Ecography 35:

Space: global species richness BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Orme et al. (2005) Nature 436,

Space: biomes of the world BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Nature education

Space and time: expansion & succession BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Svenning & Skov (2004) Ecology Letter 7:

Macroevolution – Speciation, adaptive radiations, extinctions, co- evolution, convergent trait evolution – Relatedness of species BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Describes evolutionary relationships that occur over relatively long periods of geologic time and result in diversification between species Adapative radiation in Darwin‘s finches

Macro- vs. microevolution? in contrast with microevolution, which refers to evolutionary changes over relatively short period of geologic time (such as between generations) and results in diversification within species – Change of allele frequencies of a population – Mutation, gene flow / migration, genetic drift and natural selection BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Wikipedia; Bioninja

Macroevolution: speciation, extinction & relatedness BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Planet of the Apes. David Begun and John Gurche, Scientific American, 16, 4-13 (2006) doi: /scientificamerican0606-4sp

Macroevolution: (convergent) trait evolution BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Nature education

Macroecology and macroevolution BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Spatial variation in species-level lineage diversification rate Jetz, W.; Thomas, G. H.; Joy, J. B.; Hartmann, K. & Mooers, A. O. (2012) The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491,

Ecological processes: life-history strategies BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Nature Education

Ecological processes: species interactions InteractionSpecies XSpecies Y Mutualism++ Commensalism+0 Predation+- Herbivory+- Parasitism+- Amensalism0- Competition-- Neutralism00 Table 1: Classic categories of direct effects in ecological communities The sign (+, -, 0) represents the net effect of one species on the other species, either positive, negative, or neutral. BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Nature Education

What is macroecology? In its early developments, macroecology has been mainly descriptive and only more recently transforms to an analytical explanatory science BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change Land plant of Britain from Watson (1859) Description Explanation Local community filters by Thuiller et al. (2013) BIO 232 focus

Literature Books: Brown JH Macroecology. Univ. Press, Chicago. Gaston KJ, Blackburn TM Pattern and Process in Macroecology. Blackwell Sci. Publ, Oxford. Blackburn TM, Gaston KJ (eds) Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford. Journals: Ecography Global Ecology and Biogeography Ecology Letters Journal of Biogeography Diversity and Distributions BIO 232 Macroecology, niche evolution and climate change