Data from: Climate change predicts Quaternary extinctions and extant genetic diversity in a threatened Australian lizard
Data files
Oct 23, 2025 version files 1.79 GB
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Metadata_for_specimens.xlsx
19.08 KB
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README.md
3.51 KB
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Surface_models_and_landmark_files.tar
1.79 GB
Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change poses a major threat to biodiversity worldwide; however, estimating its future impacts remains challenging. To predict and mitigate future biodiversity loss, transdisciplinary approaches are essential yet seldom applied. Here we integrate population genomics, quantitative fossil identifications, species distribution modelling, and high-resolution digital morphology to assess how Quaternary climate change and projected future climate relate to extinction vulnerability of the threatened Australian mountain dragon (Rankinia diemensis). We show that past temperature and precipitation changes have led to significant range contractions and shifts to higher elevation, resulting in geographic and genetic disconnection between modern populations. Several low-altitude populations are now extinct or show low genetic diversity and high genetic differentiation consistent with genetic drift in isolation. Models of future habitat suitability predict further climate-related contractions in remnant populations, highlighting the urgent need for updated conservation strategies. Our study demonstrates the power of integrating next-generation data for reconstructing past and modelling future effects of global warming, to design tailored conservation strategies for species most at risk of extinction due to anthropogenic climate change.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.bzkh189nf
Description of the data and file structure
This supplementary dataset (.tar) contains data crucial for reproducing the morphological analyses of our study. It includes surface models (.ply) of the crania of the included agamid specimens, as well as files including the landmark coordinates (.tps) and landmark pairs (.txt).
Files and variables
File: Surface_models_and_landmark_files.tar
Description:
This folder contains
- surface models of Rankinia specimens, created for this study, in polygon file format (.ply). These files can be viewed and manipulated easily using open source software (e.g., MeshLab)
- a text file (.txt) containing numbers for matched pairs of landmarks across the line of symmetry, which can directly be used in R for the function bilat.symmetry in the R package geomorph
- Landmark coordinates (.tps) for the whole dataset. This file lists the landmark coordinates of each specimen in three columns (X,Y,Z coordinates), with each block of coordinates representing one specimen following the order of the metadata file (Data S2J) which can be found in the supplement of the paper. This file can for example be loaded in R using the R function readland.tps in the R package geomorph
File: Metadata_for_specimens.xlsx
Description: Metadata for the included specimens. The table further contains explanations of institutional abbreviations, abbreviations and the cited papers.
- prefix: this column contains institutional abbreviations for the included specimens
- reg_nr: this column contains registration numbers for the included specimens
- spec_ID: this column contains a specimen specific ID including an abbreviation of the taxonomic name (the first three letters of genus and species name) as well as institutional collection numbers
- species: abbreviation of the taxonomic name (the first three letters of genus and species name). This column determines to which species a specimen was assigned. Note that this can differ from the assignment in the spec_ID column, because the taxonomy of specimens was updated according to genetic studies cited in the paper
- genus: abbreviation of the genus name. This column determines to which genus a specimen was assigned
- microhabitat: abbreviation of the microhabitat. This column determines to which microhabitat a specimen was assigned
- sex: this column indicates the sex of the specimens
- juv: this column determines if a specimen was considered juvenile (yes) or not (no)
- scanner: this column indicates the scanner model used for creating the respective scan
- resolution (um): scan resolution in micro meters, scan parameters of specimens taken from other studies can be found in the original publications. In these cases cells are left empty.
- source voltage (kV): source voltage in kV, scan parameters of specimens taken from other studies can be found in the original publications. In these cases cells are left empty.
- source current (uA): source current in micro ampere, scan parameters of specimens taken from other studies can be found in the original publications. In these cases cells are left empty.
- citation: this column indicates if a specimen scan was created in the course of the present study. Otherwise the citation is given