Geographical patterns and partition of turnover and richness components of beta-diversity in faunas from Tocantins river valley

Mls Tonial,Nj Silva Júnior,Hlr Silva,Ij Tonial,Mc Costa,Jaf Diniz-Filho

doi:10.1590/s1519-69842012000300012

Mls Tonial, Nj Silva Júnior + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s1519-69842012000300012

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Abstract

There has been a resurging interest in patterns of β-diversity, especially by the mechanisms driving broad-scale, continental and global patterns, and how partitioning β-diversity into richness (or nestedness) and turnover components can be linked with such mechanisms. Here we compared two recent methodologies to find richness and turnover components of β-diversity, using a large regional scale dataset of mammal, bird, reptiles and amphibian species found in seven regions of Central, North and Northeastern Brazil. As well as a simple comparison of the metrics available, we analyzed spatial patterns (i.e., distance-decay similarity) and the effects of biome type in these components using raw and partial Mantel tests. Our analyses revealed that turnover estimated using Baselga's (2010) approach is slightly higher than the estimate using Carvalho's et al. (2012) approach, but all analyses show consistent spatial patterns in species turnover using both methods. Spatial patterns in β-diversity revealed by Mantel tests are also consistent with expectations based on differential dispersal abilities. Our results also reinforce that spatial patterns in β-diversity, mainly in the turnover components expressing faunal differentiation, are determined by a mix or broad scale environmental effects and short distance spatially-structured dispersal.

Highlights

There has been a resurging interest in patterns of β-diversity, especially by the mechanisms driving broad-scale, continental and global patterns, and how partitioning β-diversity into richness and turnover components can be linked with such mechanisms
The idea is that the difference among species in two faunas could be due to a replacement of species or due to a shift in species richness
These spatial patterns in overall β-diversity were consistently determined by its turnover component, and richness or nestedness component only showed significant spatial pattern for amphibians, regardless of the relative balance between richness/turnover components for all groups in the distinct methodologies

Summary

Introduction

There has been a resurging interest in patterns of β-diversity, especially by the mechanisms driving broad-scale, continental and global patterns, and how partitioning β-diversity into richness (or nestedness) and turnover components can be linked with such mechanisms. In the last 10 years, some papers started to investigate these patterns using continental and global datasets (e.g., Gaston et al, 2007; Qian, 2009; Melo et al, 2009) and these triggered a whole new set of questions regarding the mechanisms driving species turnover at broad geographical scales It has been recognized for a while that the several metrics available for estimating β-diversity capture different components of differences among sites or regions (e.g., Harrison et al, 1992; Lennon et al, 2001; Koleff et al, 2003), but Baselga (2010) recently proposed that these components could be formally partitioned using these different metrics. Do the different components of β-diversity (i.e., turnover and richness) possess distinct spatial patterns and do these spatial patterns vary among groups of vertebrates with distinct dispersal?

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