Diversity and phylogenetic community structure across elevation during climate change in a family of hyperdiverse neotropical beetles (Staphylinidae)

Environmental stress from abiotic conditions imposes physiological limits on individuals within communities, and these stressful can act as a filter the species present in any given environment. Such stressors reduce community's diversity make its composition more phylogenetically clustered. Using decade of staphylinid beetle (Staphylinidae, Coleoptera, rove beetles) collections made across 1500 m elevation gradient northwestern Costa Rica (2008–2017) we asked what lived there, how large overlapping were communities this gradient, relationship was there between diversity. DNA barcodes for identification phylogenetic estimates community structure, found high turnover elevation, that increased linearly with elevation. Because this, negatively related to surface area temperature, positively precipitation. We suggest historical biogeography contemporary environmental have combined produce observed patterns. The forests which beetles are heating drying rapidly our finding increases suggests will be catastrophic biodiversity loss coming decades.