Phylogenetic niche conservatism, phylogenetic signal and the relationship between phylogenetic relatedness and ecological similarity among species.

By J. Losos. Ecology Letters, 2008

1,627 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Ecologists are increasingly adopting an evolutionary perspective, and in recent years, the idea that closely related species are ecologically similar has become widespread. In this regard, phylogenetic signal must be distinguished from phylogenetic niche conservatism. Phylogenetic niche conservatism results when closely related species are more ecologically similar that would be expected based on their phylogenetic relationships; its occurrence suggests that some process is constraining divergence among closely related species. In contrast, phylogenetic signal refers to the situation in which ecological similarity between species is related to phylogenetic relatedness; this is the expected outcome of Brownian motion divergence and thus is necessary, but not sufficient, evidence for the existence of phylogenetic niche conservatism. Although many workers consider phylogenetic niche conservatism to be common, a review of case studies indicates that ecological and phylogenetic similarities often are not related. Consequently, ecologists should not assume that phylogenetic niche conservatism exists, but rather should empirically examine the extent to which it occurs.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0263e7b0dd604490e24906d653cbe23edfeb4673

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Citations in the corpus

Going beyond limitations of plant functional types when predicting global ecosystem–atmosphere fluxes: exploring the merits of traits‐based approaches (2012, background): “1), reducing adverse effects of phylogenetic constraints on the dispersal of traits even if phylogenetic constraints occur independently of habitat filtering (Losos, 2008).”
Dispersal traits drive the phylogenetic distance decay of similarity in Neotropical stream metacommunities (2015, background): “In order for ecological inferences drawn from phylogenetic structure it is important to test whether there is a phylogenetic signal (sensu Losos, 2008) in the data.”
Spatial mismatch and congruence between taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity: the need for integrative conservation strategies in a changing world. (2010, background): “These patterns of congruence or non-congruence suggest that species occurring locally may derive from regional species pools with similar as well as different biogeographical and evolutionary histories (Webb et al. 2002; Losos 2008; Prinzing et al. 2008; Cumming & Child 2009).”
The merging of community ecology and phylogenetic biology. (2009, background): “However, ecological similarity of closely related species cannot be assumed without specifically testing for it (Losos 2008) because ecological niches and their underlying traits can be labile (Losos et al. 2003; Cavender-Bares et al. 2004a; Pearman et al. 2008).”
Functional and phylogenetic assembly in a Chinese tropical tree community across size classes, spatial scales and habitats (2014, background): “As many researchers have argued, the limitation of phylogenetic proxies is that phylogenetic distance is not always a good predictor of ecological similarity (Losos 2008) and community assembly studies that only use phylogenetic information may be misleading when coexisting species simultaneously co”
Testing the climate variability hypothesis in thermal tolerance limits of tropical and temperate tadpoles (2016, background): “conservatism, however, closely related species may display similar physiological resemblance and limited adaptive potential (Losos, 2008).”
Using functional traits and phylogenetic trees to examine the assembly of tropical tree communities (2012, methodology): “Under phylogenetic trait conservatism (sensu Losos 2008), where lineages diverge early in trait values but are subsequently restricted to a limited range of trait values, K may be greater than one.”
Bringing the Hutchinsonian niche into the 21st century: Ecological and evolutionary perspectives (2009, background): “Wiens JJ (2008) Commentary on Losos: Niche conservatism déjà vu.”
Measuring biodiversity to explain community assembly: a unified approach (2011, background): “Conservation here means phylogenetic signal in trait variation across species (more closely related taxa are more similar) rather than higher phylogenetic signal than expected from a Brownian model (which would imply mechanisms that decrease trait evolutionary rates) (Losos, 2008).”
Ecological niche conservatism: a time‐structured review of evidence (2011, background): “Subsequent discussions and reviews of the subject (Ackerly, 2003; Wiens & Graham, 2005; Losos, 2008; Pearman et al., 2008; Warren et al., 2008; Wiens, 2008) have shed new light on the issue, particularly as additional evidence has accumulated.”
Influence of phylogeny and ploidy on species ranges of North American angiosperms (2009, background): “The phylogenetic component of geographic and climatic variation may reflect the vestiges of common descent and possibly the fact that relatives retain similarities because they occur and experience selection in similar habitats (niche conservatism, Losos 2008).”
Phylogenetic trees do not reliably predict feature diversity (2014, background): “…(see Mouquet et al., 2012) in which distant relatives are assumed to have dissimilar phenotypes, theorists of community phylogenetics (Webb, 2000; Losos, 2008) have been at pains to point out that relative proximity on a phylogeny need not imply relative similarity in phenotype and that…”
Heat freezes niche evolution. (2013, methodology): “Notwithstanding, tests of niche conservatism (sensu Losos 2008; i.e. whether niches change more slowly than expected from Brownian motion evolution) with measures of overlap between climatic niches inferred using methods that relate geographical distributions of species to aspects of climate have…”