Global warming, elevational ranges and the vulnerability of tropical biota

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Laurance, William F.;Useche, D. Carolina;Shoo, Luke P.;Herzog, Sebastian K.;Kessler, Michael;Escobar, Federico;Brehm, Gunnar;Axmacher, Jan C.;Chen, I-Ching;Gámez, Lucrecia Arellano;Hietz, Peter;Fiedler, Konrad;Pyrcz, Tomasz;Wolf, Jan;Merkord, Christopher L.;Cardelus, Catherine;Marshall, Andrew R.;Ah-Peng, Claudine;Aplet, Gregory H.;Arizmendi, M. del Coro;Baker, William J.;Barone, John;Brühl, Carsten A.;Bussmann, Rainer W.;Cicuzza, Daniele;Eilu, Gerald;Favila, Mario E.;Hemp, Andreas;Hemp, Claudia;Homeier, Jürgen;Hurtado, Johanna;Jankowski, Jill;Kattán, Gustavo;Kluge, Jürgen;Krömer, Thorsten;Lees, David C.;Lehnert, Marcus;Longino, John T.;Lovett, Jon;Martin, Patrick H.;Patterson, Bruce D.;Pearson, Richard G.;Peh, Kelvin S-H.;Richardson, Barbara;Richardson, Michael;Samways, Michael J.;Senbeta, Feyera;Smith, Thomas B.;Utteridge, Timothy M.A.;Watkins, James E.;Wilson, Rohan;Williams, Stephen E.;Thomas, Chris D.
William Laurance
Abstract

Tropical species with narrow elevational ranges may be thermally specialized and vulnerable to global warming. Local studies of distributions along elevational gradients reveal small-scale patterns but do not allow generalizations among geographic regions or taxa. We critically assessed data from 249 studies of species elevational distributions in the American, African, and Asia-Pacific tropics. Of these, 150 had sufficient data quality, sampling intensity, elevational range, and freedom from serious habitat disturbance to permit robust across-study comparisons. We found four main patterns: (1) species classified as elevational specialists (upper- or lower-zone specialists) are relatively more frequent in the American than Asia-Pacific tropics, with African tropics being intermediate; (2) elevational specialists are rare on islands, especially oceanic and smaller continental islands, largely due to a paucity of upper-zone specialists; (3) a relatively high proportion of plants and ectothermic vertebrates (amphibians and reptiles) are upper-zone specialists; and (4) relatively few endothermic vertebrates (birds and mammals) are upperzone specialists. Understanding these broad-scale trends will help identify taxa and geographic regions vulnerable to global warming and highlight future research priorities.

Journal

Biological Conservation

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Volume

144

ISBN/ISSN

1873-2917

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Issue

1

Pages Count

10

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Publisher

Elsevier

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EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2010.10.010