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Understanding species’ spatial distributions : A Soricidae family case study
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Climate change is an on-going reality having already given rise to observed changes in natural ecosystems. It is thus a priority to predict how species’ distributions will adjust to new environmental conditions. For this purpose, two approaches are essential: to increase the knowledge on the factors limiting species’ distributions, and to develop tools, using that knowledge, to make future predictions. I explore these approaches over four studies, using, as a case study, shrews (family Soricidae). I analyse the relative impact of two factors, climate and competition between closely related species, at different geographical, taxonomical and temporal scales. In the first study, I found evidence that competition between two Soricidae subfamilies limited their global distribution. More specifically, I detected that competitive release, over evolutionary time, allowed members of one subfamily to fill ecological niches that usually correspond to the other subfamily. In the second study I found evidence that the European distribution of seven shrew species was partially shaped by competitive interactions. I also found that the strength of these interactions varied along a climatic gradient. In the third study, I focused on the potential impacts of future climate change on three shrew species, competing at local scale. In this case, I found evidence that one of the species was likely to have its range considerably decreased in the future. Simultaneously, its relative distributional area under sympatry with its main competitor is expected to increase. In the last study, I developed a model that highlights the importance of species’ physiological characteristic, and the added energetic costs of competition, in limiting their spatial distributions. These findings revealed that species’ distributions can be shaped by species’ interactions even at continental scales, and that these interactions, along with species’ distributions, can, and likely will, fundamentally change due to climate change.
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Alterações Climáticas Competição Modelos de Distribuíção de Espécies Musaranhos Competition Climate Change Species Distribution Models Shrews