Cradles of diversity are unlikely relics of regional climate stability

Abstract

The stability of regional climates on millennial timescales is theorised to be a primary determinant of nearby diversification [1-5]. Using simulated patterns of past temperature change at monthly timescales [6], we show that the locations of climatically stable regions are likely to have varied considerably across and within millennia during glacial-interglacial cycles of the Late Quaternary. This result has important implications for the role of regional climate stability in theories of speciation, because long-term climate refugia are typically presumed to be 'cradles' of diversity (areas of high speciation) only if they remain stable across Milankovitch climate oscillations [1-5], which operate on multi-millennial time scales [7].