Different groups of taxa exhibit varying degree of climatic niche conservatism or divergence due to evolutionary constraints imposed on taxa, distributional relationships among taxa, and likely also environmental conditions these taxa occupy. Herein, we explore to what extent environmental factors affect climatic niche overlap between pairs of congeneric species of Peromyscus mice that exhibit allopatric, parapatric, or sympatric distributions. We used Bayesian generalized linear mixed models to identify environmental variables that best explain differences in climatic niche overlap between species.
Results/Conclusions
Our results suggest that regional environmental conditions explain 13-44% variation in climatic niche overlap. Allopatric and parapatric species pairs are more likely to occupy similar climatic niches in areas that are topographically less complex but with have more complex habitats. Sympatric species are more likely to occupy similar climatic niches in areas that promote local niche partitioning (topographically less complex, warmer winter temperatures, higher precipitation, and higher habitat complexity on a local scale).