ArticleGlobal ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology2025
Geologic history explains freshwater fish species richness across the conterminous USA.
Article in Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Aim: Freshwater fishes comprise over 20% of vertebrate biodiversity despite occupying <1% of the Earth's surface. However, species richness differs substantially among river basins. Fundamentally, richness patterns can be explained by spatial variation in diversification rates, evolutionary time, and habitat capacities, which are in turn shaped by landscape change over geologic timescales. To test how geologic disturbances have influenced the accumulation of freshwater fish biodiversity, we hypothesized species richness would be (1) ordered by regional geologic history, (2) associated with high or intermediate river capture rates, (3) higher in assemblages with older evolutionary origins, and (4) positively associated with stream size. Time Period: 2008-2019. Location: Conterminous United States (USA). Major Taxa: Freshwater fishes. Methods: We analyzed native species richness from a spatially representative survey of 5,321 fish assemblages at 3,609 sites. Geologic history was determined from surrogates of tectonic activity, glaciation, sea levels, and river capture over the last 66 million years, which were paired with previously published evolutionary time estimates. Hypotheses were tested with spatial linear models. Results: All hypotheses were at least partially supported. (1) Rank-order richness matched hypothesized effects of geologic disturbances on evolutionary time and diversification rates. (2) Richness peaked in lowlands with high putative river capture rates. (3) Richness increased with evolutionary time at broad scales, but this relationship was weak and influenced by non-teleost taxa. (4) Richness largely increased with stream size.Overall, the tectonically active western USA exhibited lower richness, weaker effects of stream size, and a greater share of young lineages compared to the more geologically stable eastern USA, especially unglaciated lowlands within the Mississippi Basin. Main Conclusions: We demonstrate that deep-time processes leave a persistent mark on fish species richness. Thus, accounting for geologic history can improve assessments of freshwater biodiversity and biological condition in the USA and beyond.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.