Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Biodiversity is predicted to stabilize ecosystems if species have different ecological niches that shape responses to environmental change. How this response diversity is influenced by ecological and evolutionary processes remains poorly understood. We determine the drivers of thermal response diversity of 16 Swiss peri-alpine lake-fish communities. We report the first evidence that evolutionary diversification of lineages through adaptive radiation can increase the response diversity of an ecosystem. In-situ diversification increases response diversity in the cold-deep lake environment, but non-endemic and non-native species contributed only weakly to response diversity. The loss of endemic species during historical anthropogenic eutrophication led to a negative legacy on present thermal response diversity in cold and deep lake strata. Overall, the interplay of evolutionary diversification, ecological assembly and anthropogenic impacts drives variation in response diversity. Conserving and restoring processes that generate diversity may help maintain the response diversity that underpins ecosystem stability during the Anthropocene.
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
Funder: Bundesamt für Umwelt
OpenAlex ID: W7167672910