The global macroecology of brood size in amphibians reveals a predisposition of low‐fecundity species to extinction

作者：Daniel Pincheira‐Donoso, Lilly P. Harvey, Sheena C. Cotter, Gavin Stark, Shai Meiri, David J. Hodgson · 发表于：Global Ecology and Biogeography · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1111/geb.13287 · 被引用次数：46 · 研究领域：Amphibian and Reptile Biology、Species Distribution and Climate Change、Animal Behavior and Reproduction

Abstract Aim The diversity of brood size across animal species exceeds the diversity of most other life‐history traits. In some environments, reproductive success increases with brood size, whereas in others it increases with smaller broods. The dominant hypothesis explaining such diversity predicts that selection on brood size varies along climatic gradients, creating latitudinal fecundity patterns. Another hypothesis predicts that diversity in fecundity arises among species adapted to different microhabitats within assemblages. A more recent hypothesis concerned with the consequences of these evolutionary processes in the era of anthropogenic environmental change predicts that low‐fecundity species might fail to recover from demographic collapses caused by rapid environmental alterations, making them more susceptible to extinctions. These hypotheses have been addressed predominantly in endotherms and only rarely in other taxa. Here, we address all three hypotheses in amphibians globally. Location Global. Time period Present. Major taxa studied Class Amphibia. Methods Using a dataset spanning 2,045 species from all three amphibian orders, we adopt multiple phylogenetic approaches to investigate the association between brood size and climatic, ecological and phenotypic predictors, and according to species conservation status. Results Brood size increases with latitude. This tendency is much stronger in frogs, where temperature seasonality is the dominant driver, whereas salam...