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Laurance, William ; Useche, 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. ; del Coro Arizmendi, M. ; 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.:
Global warming, elevational ranges and the vulnerability of tropical biota.
In: Biological Conservation.
Bd. 144
(2011)
Heft 1
.
- S. 548-557.
ISSN 0006-3207
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2010.10.010
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 upper-zone specialists. Understanding these broad-scale trends will help identify taxa and geographic regions vulnerable to global warming and highlight future research priorities.