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Past and future decline of tropical pelagic biodiversity.

Authors :
Yasuhara M
Wei CL
Kucera M
Costello MJ
Tittensor DP
Kiessling W
Bonebrake TC
Tabor CR
Feng R
Baselga A
Kretschmer K
Kusumoto B
Kubota Y
Source :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2020 Jun 09; Vol. 117 (23), pp. 12891-12896. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 May 26.
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

A major research question concerning global pelagic biodiversity remains unanswered: when did the apparent tropical biodiversity depression (i.e., bimodality of latitudinal diversity gradient [LDG]) begin? The bimodal LDG may be a consequence of recent ocean warming or of deep-time evolutionary speciation and extinction processes. Using rich fossil datasets of planktonic foraminifers, we show here that a unimodal (or only weakly bimodal) diversity gradient, with a plateau in the tropics, occurred during the last ice age and has since then developed into a bimodal gradient through species distribution shifts driven by postglacial ocean warming. The bimodal LDG likely emerged before the Anthropocene and industrialization, and perhaps ∼15,000 y ago, indicating a strong environmental control of tropical diversity even before the start of anthropogenic warming. However, our model projections suggest that future anthropogenic warming further diminishes tropical pelagic diversity to a level not seen in millions of years.<br />Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1091-6490
Volume :
117
Issue :
23
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
32457146
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916923117