Abstract
BackgroundThe abundant-centre hypothesis (ACH) assumes that a species becomes more abundant at the centre of its range, where the environmental conditions are most favorable. As we move away from this centre, abundance and occupancy decline. Although this is obvious intuitively, efforts to confirm the hypothesis have often failed. We investigated the abundance patterns of Campanula lingulata across its altitudinal range on Mt. Olympus, Greece, in order to evaluate the “abundant centre” hypothesis along an elevation gradient. Furthermore, we explored the species’ presence and dynamics at multiple spatial scales.MethodsWe recorded flowering individuals during the summer months of 2012 and 2013 along a series of transects defined by paths. We investigated whether the probability of acquiring a larger number of individuals is larger toward the centre of its altitudinal distribution. We also calculated mean presence and turnover at different spatial scales that ranged from quadrats of 10 × 10 m2 to about 10 × 10 km2.ResultsWe were able to identify an abundant centre but only for one of the years of sampling. During the second year, we noted a two-peak abundance pattern; with the first peak occurring at 650–750 m and the second at 1100–1300 m. Variability in the species-presence pattern is observed across a wide range of spatial scales. The pattern along the transect displays fractal characteristics, consistent with a dimension of 0.24–0.29. We found substantial changes of state between the 2 years at all resolutions.ConclusionsOur results do not contradict the ACH, but indicate that ecological distributions exhibit types of variability that make the detection of abundant centres more difficult than expected. When a random fractal disturbance is superimposed upon an abundant centre, we can expect a pattern in which the centre is difficult to discern from a single instance. A multi-resolution or fractal approach to environmental variability is a promising approach for describing this phenomenon.
Highlights
The abundant-centre hypothesis (ACH) assumes that a species becomes more abundant at the centre of its range, where the environmental conditions are most favorable
We consider the distribution of a plant species along an altitudinal gradient and we investigate how well it complies with the ACH
Apart from the increase in abundance, which was observed in all but one route (15), Fig. 2 shows the invested effort within each route as well as the percentage of each vegetation cover type of the categories described in the “Methods” section
Summary
The abundant-centre hypothesis (ACH) assumes that a species becomes more abundant at the centre of its range, where the environmental conditions are most favorable. Species that decline in abundance tend to occupy fewer sites, while species that increase in abundance are more likely to be expanding their distribution [6,7,8]. Such positive relationships are well documented for various scales and habitat types [7]. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this type of relationship [21] These may be classified as range-position, resource breadth, resource usage, and population dynamics [21]. Populationdynamic explanations use patterns of growth or decline, local extinction and colonization in order to describe the observed OA pattern [21]
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