The influence of long-term history on present day patterns in biodiversity and ecosystems

Jens-Christian Svenning

Aarhus University, Denmark, svenning@bios.au.dk 
(in English)

ATTENTION: En raison des mesures de restriction d’accès au Campus Triolet, les personnes extérieures à l’Université de Montpellier doivent venir munies de: AFFICHE IMPRIMÉE + UNE PIECE D'IDENTITÉ.

Prof. Svenning will provide an overview of his research on the role of long-term historical factors in shaping current diversity and ecosystem patterns across spatial scales, supplementing and interacting with contemporary factors. Global and continental-scale studies of species distributions show strong imprints of past climate change, both Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate oscillations as well as even longer-term dynamics in climate. At regional scales, there are also clear legacies of these paleoclimatic changes in contemporary diversity patterns. There are also important non-climatic historical effects on distribution and diversity patterns, resulting from factors such as idiosyncratic patterns in lineage evolution and migration as well as prehistoric human impacts. These large-scale historical dynamics can shape the structure of local communities, supplementing local assembly processes. While much less investigated, there is also emerging evidence that these historical dynamics can affect functional diversity and ecosystem functioning. Finally, the implications of historical legacies in diversity and ecosystem patterns for ecological responses to future global change will be discussed.

Recent publications:

Svenning, J.-C., Eiserhardt, W.L., Normand, S., Ordonez, A. & Sandel, B. 2015. The influence of paleoclimate on present-day patterns in biodiversity and ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 46, 551-572.

Eiserhardt, W.L., Borchsenius, F., Plum, C.M., Ordonez, A. & Svenning, J.-C. 2015. Climate-driven extinctions shape the phylogenetic structure of temperate tree floras. Ecology Letters 18:263-72.

Sandel, B., Arge, L., Dalsgaard, B., Davies, R.G., Gaston, K.J., Sutherland, W.J. & Svenning, J.-C. 2011. The influence of late quaternary climate-change velocity on endemism. Science 334:660-664.