Climatic niche change of fish is faster at high latitude and in marine environments

Abstract

Change in species’ climatic niches is a key mechanism influencing species distribution patterns. The question of which factors impact niche change remains a highly debated topic in evolutionary biology. Previous studies have proposed that rates of climatic niche change might be correlated with climatic oscillations at high latitude or adaptation to new environmental conditions. Yet, very few studies have asked if those factors are also predominant in aquatic environments. Here, we reconstruct the climatic niche changes of fish species on a new phylogeny encompassing 12,616 species. We first confirm that the rate of niche change is faster at high latitude and show that this association is steeper for freshwater than for marine species. We also show that freshwater species have slower rates of niche change than marine species. These results may be explained by the fact that freshwater species have larger climatic niche breadth and thermal safety margin than marine species at high latitude. Overall, our study sheds a new light on the environmental conditions and species features impacting rates of climatic niche change in aquatic habitats.