Intestinal microbiota

“This difference is due primarily to the disparity in the number of new species created per progenitor that diversified,” they say. However, three of these four southern clade speciation events resulted in widespread species that now range across much of eastern North America and a species that is restricted to the Atlantic coastal plain. “The fourth event led to the splitting of a progenitor into three species that all now inhabit this same coastal plain,” they say. Importantly, the differences between the northern and southern clades suggests that local biogeography and climate change were critical for the macroevolutionary dynamics of these organisms. “Both the northern and southern clades showed a recent elevation in speciation rate and, as expected, the northern clade showed a substantially greater increase than the southern clade,” the authors say. Changing climates may be more likely to drive members of some groups with particular features extinct, simply shift the ranges of others, and spark diversification in still others, the authors say. “Focused studies comparing clades with different responses will allow us to to determine how biogeography may interact with the ecological and phenotypic properties of various clade members to determine these responses,” they say. “Such studies will be invaluable as guides to conservation efforts as we try to anticipate species’ response to climate change in the future.” Although for many species, climate change spells trouble, for others, local factors and evolutionary mechanisms may provide an opportunity for exploitation of a changing climatic world. Magazine R235