%0 Journal Article
%A López Cantalapiedra, Juan
%A Hernández Fernández, Manuel
%A Morales, Jorge
%T Biomic Specialization and Speciation Rates in Ruminants(Cetartiodactyla, Mammalia): A Test of the Resource-UseHypothesis at the Global Scale
%D 2011
%@ 1932-6203
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42202
%X The resource-use hypothesis proposed by E.S. Vrba predicts that specialist species have higher speciation and extinctionrates than generalists because they are more susceptible to environmental changes and vicariance. In this work, we testsome of the predictions derived from this hypothesis on the 197 extant and recently extinct species of Ruminantia(Cetartiodactyla, Mammalia) using the biomic specialization index (BSI) of each species, which is based on its distributionwithin different biomes. We ran 10000 Monte Carlo simulations of our data in order to get a null distribution of BSI valuesagainst which to contrast the observed data. Additionally, we drew on a supertree of the ruminants and a phylogeneticlikelihood-based method (QuaSSE) for testing whether the degree of biomic specialization affects speciation rates inruminant lineages. Our results are consistent with the predictions of the resource-use hypothesis, which foretells a higherspeciation rate of lineages restricted to a single biome (BSI = 1) and higher frequency of specialist species in biomes thatunderwent high degree of contraction and fragmentation during climatic cycles. Bovids and deer present differentialspecialization across biomes; cervids show higher specialization in biomes with a marked hydric seasonality (tropicaldeciduous woodlands and schlerophyllous woodlands), while bovids present higher specialization in a greater variety ofbiomes. This might be the result of divergent physiological constraints as well as a different biogeographic and evolutionaryhistory.
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