developed As the diversity of species, and institution of a researcher at the Swiss research WSL with colleagues in the new lights. So the Team was able to show the importance of environmental factors such as temperature and humidity were in the development of the European biodiversity.

Why is it not everywhere the same species? And why some regions are species rich than others? These questions in biodiversity research.

distance and barriers such as a mountain or an ocean groups play a role in the Evolution of Species, as well as climatic conditions such as temperature and humidity. How big is the effect of these different components, but so far hard to come by.

An international research team led by Bianca Saladin, and Niklaus E. Zimmermann Swiss Federal research Institute for forest, snow and landscape research (WSL) has now found a way, the influence of geographical distance “wegzurechnen”, the WSL announced on Thursday. This enabled the researchers to examine solely the influence of environmental conditions on the speciation in Europe. From the results they report in the journal “ Nature Communications”.

change of warm have been lagging behind

Especially in cold and humid regions, differences between the adaptability of various animal groups emerged. Cold-blooded Vertebrates, i.e. amphibians and reptiles, were able to adapt to, apparently, late in their Evolution in cool conditions. “Environmental conditions represent a barrier, and cold-blooded animals, it was apparently harder to overcome this barrier,” said Saladin in an interview with the news Agency Keystone-SDA.

From the individual who made it, branched a new species. All cold-blooded vertebrates have branched out in cold and wet areas, but only a little more.

unlike warm-blooded animals such as mammals and birds: you the jump on this ecological barrier succeeded much earlier in their Evolution. In addition, there were several species independently of each other, and cool habitats to explore.

the ability to keep the body temperature stable is an advantage in cold life, is logical but has not been proven, according to Saladin, as yet, for the Overcoming of ecological barriers. Reason for this is that the influence of cold on the Evolution of the species has not been previously considered decoupled from geographical influences, and in the environmental space.

effects break down

what is Interesting about the method is that the Trick can also turn around: “We can now subtract the influence of the environmental conditions, in order to find out, what is the weight of the component distance was, or what role, specifically, a barrier such as a mountain or the ice age played,” said Saladin.

The individual components behind the emergence of the diversity of species, broken down, and to understand their effects, it was particularly important, precisely because the biodiversity in Switzerland and around the world dramatically going back, as the researcher.

(oli/sda)

Created: 14.02.2019, 16:06 PM