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Abstract
In community ecology, ensembles are defined as phylogenetically bounded groups of species that use a similar set of resources within a community. Tenebrionids are a conspicuous faunal component of Asian deserts, but little is known about their community ecology. We investigated if tenebrionids associated with different plant species constitute ensembles with a different ecological structure. Sampling was done with pitfall traps placed beneath the most common plant species. Tenebrionid abundance patterns were modelled by fitting rank–abundance plots. The association between tenebrionid species and plant species was tested using contingency tables. Differences in ensemble diversity were investigated by diversity profiles. All ensembles were fitted by the geometric series model. Tenebrionid species were differently associated with different plant species. Diversity profiles indicate that different ensembles have different diversity patterns, because of differences in species relative abundance. Tenebrionids form different ensembles associated with the different dominant plant species. All these ensembles are, however, characterized by similar patterns of dominance, following the “niche pre-emption” model, and a steep decline in the diversity profiles. This indicates that similar environmental conditions lead to similar insect ensemble organization, although the most abundant species may vary, which suggests a role for microhabitat selection.
Highlights
In ecology, the word community is typically used to indicate a group of interacting species occurring together in space, without reference about their possible phylogenetic relationships and resource use [1,2]
This indicates that similar environmental conditions lead to similar insect ensemble organization, the most abundant species may vary, which suggests a role for microhabitat selection
To test if species abundance distributions matched the geometric series, we modelled rank–abundance curves [52,53,54] with the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression approach described by Fattorini [50]
Summary
The word community is typically used to indicate a group of interacting species occurring together in space, without reference about their possible phylogenetic relationships and resource use [1,2]. Groups of species utilizing a shared resource (but without regard to their phylogenetical relationships) are indicated as guilds, whereas phylogenetically bounded groups of species that use a similar set of resources within a community form “ensembles” [3,4,5,6]. Most research has been addressed to investigate insect communities, whereas guilds have rarely been studied, because of the lack of ecological information on resources use [7,8,9,10]. In desert ecosystems, resources are scarce, and their variety is reduced, which forces most species to use the same resources, which is a prerequisite to assume they belong to the same ensemble. Due to the extremely high temperatures recorded during the day, especially on the soil in certain seasons, most of the ground dwelling species are active for a limited number of hours depending on the season, but typically from the sunset to the sunrise, so that their activity rhythms largely overlap, and they are forced to interact [13,14,15,16,17]
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