Abstract
Simple SummaryIt is known that species’ distributions are influenced by several ecological factors. Nonetheless, the geographical scale upon which the influence of these factors is perceived is largely undefined. We assessed the importance of competition in regulating the distributional limits of species at large geographical scales. We studied European Soricidae shrews, because their species have similar diets, and focused on how interspecific competition changes along climatic gradients. We used presence data for the seven most widespread terrestrial species of Soricidae in Europe, gathered from online repositories, European museums, and gridded climate data. Using two different methods, we analysed the correlations between species’ presences, aiming to understand the distinct roles of climate and competition in shaping species’ distributions. Our results support three key conclusions: (i) climate alone does not explain all species’ distributions at large scales; (ii) negative interactions, such as competition, seem to play a strong role in defining species’ range limits, even at large scales; and (iii) the impact of competition on a species’ distribution varies along a climatic gradient, becoming stronger at the climatic extremes. Our conclusions support previous research, highlighting the importance of considering biotic interactions when studying species’ distributions, regardless of geographical scale.It is known that species’ distributions are influenced by several ecological factors. Nonetheless, the geographical scale upon which the influence of these factors is perceived is largely undefined. We assessed the importance of competition in regulating the distributional limits of species at large geographical scales. We focus on species with similar diets, the European Soricidae shrews, and how interspecific competition changes along climatic gradients. We used presence data for the seven most widespread terrestrial species of Soricidae in Europe, gathered from GBIF, European museums, and climate data from WorldClim. We made use of two Joint Species Distribution Models to analyse the correlations between species’ presences, aiming to understand the distinct roles of climate and competition in shaping species’ distributions. Our results support three key conclusions: (i) climate alone does not explain all species’ distributions at large scales; (ii) negative interactions, such as competition, seem to play a strong role in defining species’ range limits, even at large scales; and (iii) the impact of competition on a species’ distribution varies along a climatic gradient, becoming stronger at the climatic extremes. Our conclusions support previous research, highlighting the importance of considering biotic interactions when studying species’ distributions, regardless of geographical scale.
Highlights
Climate change is an ongoing reality, making it a current priority in conservation biology to forecast how species might respond to climatic alterations [1,2]
Performing Pollock’s analysis (Table 1) reveals that, except for Suncus etruscus and Sorex minutus, all species pairings are significantly climatically correlated at a 95% confidence level, implying that climatic filtering is an important factor for justifying the cooccurrence of each species’ pair
We aimed to ascertain the importance of biotic interactions in defining the continental distributional limits of species with similar diets, focusing on competition in particular, using as an example seven shrew species
Summary
Climate change is an ongoing reality, making it a current priority in conservation biology to forecast how species might respond to climatic alterations [1,2]. It is known that there is a variety of ecological factors that influence species’ geographical distributions, such as abiotic conditions and biotic interactions [3]. The latter has only recently been acknowledged as playing a key role in shaping species’ ranges [4,5], the scale at which it does is still debatable. Mutualistic interactions can allow species to extend their range into areas that would otherwise be inhospitable [10] Disregarding any of these situations when forecasting species distributions will likely cause a large mismatch between the realized species’ niche and their predicted niche. The strength and direction of biotic interactions are not insensitive to environmental change, as they have been shown to vary both over temporal and spatial environmental gradients, further complicating predictions under climate change [11,12,13,14]
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