Diurnal temperature range as a key predictor of plants’ elevation ranges globally

作者：Arnaud Gallou, Alistair S. Jump, Joshua S. Lynn, Richard Field, Severin D. H. Irl, Manuel J. Steinbauer, Carl Beierkuhnlein, Jan-Chang Chen, Chang‐Hung Chou, Andreas Hemp, Yohannes Kidane, Christian König, Holger Kreft, Alireza Naqinezhad, Arkadiusz Nowak, Jan-Niklas Nuppenau, Panayiotis Trigas, Jonathan P. Price, Carl A. Roland, Andreas Schweiger, Patrick Weigelt, Suzette G. A. Flantua, John‐Arvid Grytnes · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-023-43477-8 · 被引用次数：43 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant and animal studies

A prominent hypothesis in ecology is that larger species ranges are found in more variable climates because species develop broader environmental tolerances, predicting a positive range size-temperature variability relationship. However, this overlooks the extreme temperatures that variable climates impose on species, with upper or lower thermal limits more likely to be exceeded. Accordingly, we propose the 'temperature range squeeze' hypothesis, predicting a negative range size-temperature variability relationship. We test these contrasting predictions by relating 88,000 elevation range sizes of vascular plants in 44 mountains to short- and long-term temperature variation. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that species' range size is negatively correlated with diurnal temperature range. Accurate predictions of short-term temperature variation will become increasingly important for extinction risk assessment in the future.