gen3sis: A general engine for eco-evolutionary simulations of the processes that shape Earth’s biodiversity
Fig 4
Illustration of one global simulation of the speciation, dispersal, and extinction of lineages over the Cenozoic, starting with a single ancestor species and imposed energetic carrying capacity (M5 in L1).
We selected the best matching simulation of M5 in L1 at 1° (n = 12) that predicted realistic biodiversity patterns. (A) Images of the Earth land masses through time, used as input for the simulation. (B) Selected emerging patterns: evolutionary dynamics, phylogeny, and present richness. (B.1) Evolutionary dynamics: γ richness (log10 scale) through time (blue line) and diversification rate. (B.2) Phylogeny showing the distribution of the temperature optima for all extant species. (B.3) Present distribution of simulated α biodiversity globally, which indicates locations of biodiversity hotspots. For the empirical match, see S8 Fig. (C) Model correspondence with empirical data on terrestrial mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles for the LDG, measured as the standardized and area-scaled mean species number per latitudinal degree. The emerging LDG%loss (i.e., 4.6% of species loss per latitudinal degree) closely matched empirical curves, with good agreement for mammals (Pearson r = 0.6), birds (r = 0.57), amphibians (r = 0.57), and reptiles (r = 0.38) (S1 Note, Figs 4C and S9). Data presented here are available in S1 Data at https://zenodo.org/record/5006413, including selected simulation summary output (phylogeny and richness) and empirical richness used to derive LDG curves. LDG, latitudinal diversity gradient.