Evolution of endemism on a young tropical mountain
Jungle Genetics: How do you map the DNA of an entire tropical mountain? Biologist Menno Schilthuizen explains how his team combine modern lab techniques with the methods of Victorian naturalists to uncover the origins of unique mountain species. Find the full paper here: "Evolution of endemism on a young tropical mountain" (This video is owned by the journal Nature, used here for the purpose of science).
Biodiversity: Multiple origins of mountain life
A study of DNA sequences from more than 1,800 organisms on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo reveals the evolutionary mechanisms that led to the mountain's high and unique biodiversity.
Nature 524, 300–301 (20 August 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14645
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/...
Reference
Evolution of endemism on a young tropical mountain
Nature 524, 347–350 (20 August 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14949
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/...
Editor's summary
Mount Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, is the tallest peak between the Himalayas and New Guinea, and like other tropical mountains it is a biodiversity hotspot, containing many endemic species isolated by altitude. These authors investigate the evolutionary origins of such biodiversity by sampling the entire biota from Mount Kinabalu, including frogs, insects, arachnids, snails, leeches, mosses, flowering plants, ferns, and fungi. DNA barcoding reveals that most of the species are younger than the 6-million-year-old mountain, and are either relatives of lowland species that have shifted their niche upwards or long-distance immigrants from other high-altitude areas. Understanding the origins of montane biodiversity will help understand its response to environmental change.
Abstract
Tropical mountains are hot spots of biodiversity and endemism, but the evolutionary origins of their unique biotas are poorly understood. In varying degrees, local and regional extinction, long-distance colonization, and local recruitment may all contribute to the exceptional character of these communities. Also, it is debated whether mountain endemics mostly originate from local lowland taxa, or from lineages that reach the mountain by long-range dispersal from cool localities elsewhere. Here we investigate the evolutionary routes to endemism by sampling an entire tropical mountain biota on the 4,095-metre-high Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, East Malaysia. We discover that most of its unique biodiversity is younger than the mountain itself (6 million years), and comprises a mix of immigrant pre-adapted lineages and descendants from local lowland ancestors, although substantial shifts from lower to higher vegetation zones in this latter group were rare. These insights could improve forecasts of the likelihood of extinction and ‘evolutionary rescue’ in montane biodiversity hot spots under climate change scenarios.