• Energy Research

As Earth’s climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide. We found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was strongly associated with lower spatial turnover (species replacements) and higher nestedness (richness changes) components of beta-diversity across all three biodiversity facets. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional turnover was lower and nestedness higher than random expectations based on taxonomic beta-diversity in regions that experienced large temperature change, reflecting phylogenetically and functionally selective processes in species replacement, extinction, and colonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results suggest that future human-driven climate change could cause local homogenization and reduction in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of angiosperm trees worldwide.

ABSTRACTHigh temperature (HT) and water deficit (WD) are frequent environmental constraints restricting plant growth and productivity. These stresses often occur simultaneously in the field, but little is known about their combined impacts on plant growth, development and physiology. We evaluated the responses of 10 Arabidopsis thaliana natural accessions to prolonged elevated air temperature (30 °C) and soil WD applied separately or in combination. Plant growth was significantly reduced under both stresses and their combination was even more detrimental to plant performance. The effects of the two stresses were globally additive, but some traits responded specifically to one but not the other stress. Root allocation increased in response to WD, while reproductive allocation, hyponasty and specific leaf area increased under HT. All the traits that varied in response to combined stresses also responded to at least one of them. Tolerance to WD was higher in small‐sized accessions under control temperature and HT and in accessions with high biomass allocation to root under control conditions. Accessions that originate from sites with higher temperature have less stomatal density and allocate less biomass to the roots when cultivated under HT. Independence and interaction between stresses as well as the relationships between traits and stress responses are discussed.