@article{fd4b31fa873c4673a1da392d4c6067cf,
title = "Human food use increases plant geographical ranges in the Sonoran Desert",
abstract = "Aim: Climate is usually regarded as the main determinant of plant species distributions. However, past human use of species for food might also have influenced distributions. We hypothesized that human-mediated dispersal has resulted in food plants occupying more of their potential geographical range. We also hypothesized that key ecological traits could predispose a species to occupy more of its potential climatic geographical range and be selected by humans for food. Location: The Sonoran Desert of south-western North America. Time period: Present day. Major taxa studied: Food plants. Methods: We used ethnobotanical data and data from large botanical ecoinformatics databases to estimate realized (dispersal- and climate-constrained) and potential (climate-constrained) ranges for food plants and their used and unused congeners. Results: We found that food plants fill more of their potential geographical ranges than their unused congeners. We also found that succulence and annual growth interacted with food usage to increase range filling. Main conclusions: Human food use has expanded the distribution of many plant species in the Sonoran Desert.",
keywords = "biogeography, dispersal, ethnobotany, geographical distribution, human–plant interactions, range filling, species distribution modelling, trait-based ecology",
author = "Carolyn Flower and Hodgson, {Wendy C.} and Salywon, {Andrew M.} and Maitner, {Brian S.} and Enquist, {Brian J.} and Peeples, {Matthew A.} and Benjamin Blonder",
note = "Funding Information: The majority of this work was conducted at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, USA. Arizona State University has four Phoenix area campuses that sit on the ancestral territories of the Akimel O{\textquoteright}odham and Piipaash (Pee Posh) Communities, and these campuses are adjacent to Pascua Yaqui communities. We recognize the sovereignty of these nations despite the present-day occupation of this land. We acknowledge that this study would not be possible without the sharing of traditional ecological knowledge by these nations. We also thank a number of people who made this study possible. We thank Edward Gilbert for helpful feedback on accessing botanical data within the SEINet Portal Network, and the Desert Botanical Garden librarian, Beth Brand, for her assistance with finding references. We thank Dr Rodrigo C{\'a}mara Leret and Dr Mauricio Diazgranados Cadelo of Kew Botanical Garden for their advice on digitizing the Sonoran Desert food plants dataset. We thank Dr Phillip Staniczenko at the National Socio-Environmental Systems Center (SESYNC) for his advice on species distribution modelling. We also thank archaeologist Sarah Oas for her support and additional perspective on the analyses and discussion. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd",
year = "2021",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1111/geb.13311",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "30",
pages = "1461--1473",
journal = "Global Ecology and Biogeography",
issn = "1466-822X",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "7",
}