The Janus of macrophysiology: stronger effects of evolutionary history, but weaker effects of climate on upper thermal limits are reversed for lower thermal limits in ants.

ABSTRACT: Species may exhibit similar traits via different mechanisms: environmental filtering and local adaptation (geography) and shared evolutionary history (phylogeny) can each contribute to the resemblance of traits among species. Parsing trait variation into geographic and phylogenetic sources is important, as each suggests different constraints on trait evolution. Here, we explore how phylogenetic distance, geographic distance, and geographic variation in climate shape physiological tolerance of high and low temperatures using a global dataset of ant thermal tolerances. We found generally strong roles for evolutionary history and geographic variation in temperature, but essentially no detectable effects of spatial proximity per se on either upper or lower thermal tolerance. When we com

SUBMITTER: Diamond SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5905527 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature