Geographical Gradients Of Species Richness Research Articles

Unveiling geographical gradients of species richness from scant occurrence data

AbstractAimDespite longstanding investigation, the gradients of species richness remain unknown for most taxa because of shortfalls in knowledge regarding the quantity and distribution of species. Here, we explore the ability of a geostatistical interpolation model, regression‐kriging, to recover geographical gradients of species richness. We examined the technique with an in silico gradient of species richness and evaluated the effect of different configurations of knowledge shortfalls. We also took the same approach for empirical data with large knowledge gaps, the infraorder Furnariides of suboscine birds.InnovationRegression‐kriging builds upon two cornerstones of geographical gradients of biodiversity, the spatial autocorrelation of species richness and the conspicuous association of species with environmental factors. With this technique, we recovered a simulated gradient of richness using < 0.01% of sampling sites across the region. The accuracy of the regression‐kriging is higher when input samples are more evenly distributed throughout the geographical space rather than the environmental space of the target region. Moreover, the accuracy of this method is more sensitive to the sufficiency of sampling effort within cells than to the quantity of sampled localities. For Furnariides birds, regression‐kriging provided a geographical gradient of species richness that resembles purported patterns of other groups and illustrated ubiquitous shortfalls of knowledge about bird diversity.Main conclusionsGeostatistical interpolation, such as regression‐kriging, might be a useful tool to overcome shortfalls in knowledge that plague our understanding of geographical gradients of biodiversity, with many applications in ecology, palaeoecology and conservation.

Climatic and evolutionary factors shaping geographical gradients of species richness in Anolis lizards

Understanding the climatic and historical factors shaping species richness is a major goal of ecology and biogeography. Consensus on how climate affects species richness is still lacking, but four potential and non-exclusive explanations have emerged: water–energy, where diversity is determined by precipitation and/or temperature; seasonality, where diversity is determined by seasonal variation in climate; heterogeneity, where diversity is determined by spatial variability in climate; and historical climatic stability, where diversity is determined by changes in climate through evolutionary time. Climate–richness relationships are also mediated by historical processes, such as phylogenetic niche conservatism and lineage diversification across regions. We evaluated the effect of climate on species richness gradients of Anolis lizards and tested the role of phylogenetic niche conservatism and regional diversification in the origin and maintenance of climate–richness relationships. Climate had a strong nonstationary relationship with species richness, with strong shared effects among several climate axes. Regional differences in climate–richness relationships suggest different assembly processes between regions. However, we did not find evidence for a role of evolutionary factors, such as phylogenetic niche conservatism or regional diversification, underlying these relationships. We suggest that evolutionary processes affecting climate–richness relationships in Anolis were probably obscured by high dispersal rates between regions.

Can climate explain interannual local extinctions among bird species?

Aim Geographical variations in species richness are strongly related to temperature and precipitation. On ecological time-scales, these variations in species richness should reflect rates of immigration and local extinction (extirpation). Here we ask whether the probability of local extinction in passerine birds covaries with climate. Specifically, we test whether local extinctions increase with climatic harshness or with the climatic distance from a species' optimal climate. Location USA and Canada. Methods We obtained bird counts from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) from 1967 to 2012. For each BBS route, we calculated the probability of interannual local extinction for each of 206 passerine birds. We then used linear mixed-effects models and structural equation modelling to relate local extinction rates to our hypothesized predictor variables: temperature, precipitation and their distance from the species' most occupied temperature and precipitation. Results We found that local extinctions are nearly independent of temperature and precipitation: no climate is inherently more extinction-prone than any other. Similarly, the climatic distance from a species' maximally occupied temperature and precipitation has only an extremely weak positive effect on the probability of local extinction. We found that only abundance has a strong negative effect on the probability of local extinction. Main conclusions Although variations in local extinctions are typically spatially structured, we conclude that they are not related to contemporary climate in a consistent way among species. Broad-scale geographical gradients of species richness are unlikely to be driven by higher extinction rates in climatically harsh areas.

Global Gradients in Vertebrate Diversity Predicted by Historical Area-Productivity Dynamics and Contemporary Environment

Author SummaryUnderstanding what determines the distribution of biodiversity across the planet remains one of the critical challenges in biology and has gained particular urgency in the face of environmental change and accelerating species extinctions. Our study develops a novel analytical framework to jointly evaluate historical and contemporary environmental predictors of the latitudinal gradient in the diversity of terrestrial vertebrates. The number of vertebrate species is greater in warm, productive biomes, such as tropical forests, that have both a large size and a long evolutionary history. Using just a few key predictor variables—time, area, productivity, and temperature—we are now able to explain more than 80% of the variability in biodiversity among bioregions. By integrating each of these factors at both the regional and local scale in a hierarchical model, we are able to provide a consensus explanation for broad-scale diversity gradients that encompasses both ecological and evolutionary mechanisms.

Introduction: Merging Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches to Understanding Geographic Gradients in Species Richness

One of the most exciting recent developments at the interface between ecology and evolution has been community phylogeny, which was introduced in an annual review by Webb et al. (2002) and is the subject of a recent special issue of Ecology (vol. 87, suppl., July 2006). Community phylogeny merges the ecologist’s traditional concern with the distribution of traits among coexisting taxa with phylogenetic approaches to understanding where and when those traits evolved. This fusion makes it possible to ask how the distribution of functional traits within local communities arises from both ecological processes, such as habitat selection and niche partitioning, and evolutionary ones, such as phylogenetic origin and adaptive response to the environment, including other species. The result is what its proponents call the “new natural history” (Webb et al. 2006): an understanding of the ecological community that is informed by history and biogeography in addition to the contemporary distribution and ecological interactions of the component species. The goal of this special issue, and of the symposium from which it arose, is to extend this synthesis to understanding patterns in species richness along geographic and environmental gradients. Some of the most venerable questions in ecology concern how the number of coexisting species varies with latitude, elevation, productivity, area, isolation, and the frequency and severity of disturbance. Ecologists typically study factors that control diversity from a geographic perspective, analyzing numbers of species in units such as study plots, islands, or geographic regions regardless of the species’ taxonomic ori-

Correlates of Diversification in the Plant Clade Dipsacales: Geographic Movement and Evolutionary Innovations

We explore patterns of diversification in the plant clades Adoxaceae and Valerianaceae (within Dipsacales), evaluating correlations between biogeographic change (i.e., movements into new areas), morphological change (e.g., the origin of putative key innovations associated with vegetative and reproductive characters), and shifts in rates of diversification. Our findings indicate that rates of diversification in these plants tend to be less tightly correlated with the evolution of morphological innovations but instead exhibit a pronounced correlation with movement into new geographic areas, particularly the dispersal of lineages into new mountainous regions. The interdependence among apparent novelties (arising from their nested phylogenetic distribution) and the correlation between morphological and biogeographic change suggests a complex history of diversification in Dipsacales. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of incorporating biogeographic history in studies of diversification rates and in the study of geographic gradients in species richness. Furthermore, these results argue against a simple deterministic relationship between dispersal and diversification: like other factors that may influence the probability of speciation and/or extinction, the impact of dispersal on diversification rates depends on being in the right place at the right time.

Introduction: Merging Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches to Understanding Geographic Gradients in Species Richness

Next article No AccessIntroduction: Merging Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches to Understanding Geographic Gradients in Species RichnessSusan Harrison and Howard V. CornellSusan HarrisonDepartment of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California 95616*E‐mail: [email protected]. Search for more articles by this author and Howard V. CornellDepartment of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California 95616 Search for more articles by this author Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California 95616PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The American Naturalist Volume 170, Number S2August 2007Merging Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches to Understanding Geographic Gradients in Species RichnessA Symposium Organized by Susan Harrison Published for The American Society of Naturalists Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/519011 Views: 67Total views on this site Citations: 17Citations are reported from Crossref © 2007 by The University of Chicago.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Cleiber Marques Vieira, Denise Carneiro Melo Padrões biogeográficos de variação do tamanho de quirópteros brasileiros: testando a regra de Bergmann, Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento (Dec 2022): 05–25.https://doi.org/10.32749/nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/biologia/quiropteros-brasileirosSabrina S. 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Bonsall Measuring biodiversity to explain community assembly: a unified approach, Biological Reviews 86, no.44 (Dec 2010): 792–812.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185X.2010.00171.xHallvard Haanes, Bjørn Gulliksen A high local species richness and biodiversity within high-latitude calcareous aggregates of tube-building polychaetes, Biodiversity and Conservation 20, no.44 (Jan 2011): 793–806.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9980-0Alvar Carranza, Omar Defeo, Matías Arim Taxonomic relatedness and spatial structure of a shelf benthic gastropod assemblage, Diversity and Distributions 17, no.11 (Nov 2010): 25–34.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2010.00720.xMichael Kessler Biogeography of ferns, (Jun 2010): 22–60.https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844898.003Lauren B. Buckley, Walter Jetz Lizard community structure along environmental gradients, Journal of Animal Ecology 79, no.22 (Mar 2010): 358–365.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01612.xS. Bruce Archibald, William H. Bossert, David R. Greenwood, Brian D. Farrell Seasonality, the latitudinal gradient of diversity, and Eocene insects, Paleobiology 36, no.33 (Apr 2016): 374–398.https://doi.org/10.1666/09021.1Nicholas J. Gotelli, Marti J. Anderson, Hector T. Arita, Anne Chao, Robert K. Colwell, Sean R. Connolly, David J. Currie, Robert R. Dunn, Gary R. Graves, Jessica L. Green, John-Arvid Grytnes, Yi-Huei Jiang, Walter Jetz, S. Kathleen Lyons, Christy M. McCain, Anne E. Magurran, Carsten Rahbek, Thiago F.L.V.B. Rangel, Jorge Soberón, Campbell O. Webb, Michael R. Willig Patterns and causes of species richness: a general simulation model for macroecology, Ecology Letters 12, no.99 (Sep 2009): 873–886.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01353.xAlvar Carranza, Omar Defeo, Juan Carlos Castilla, Thiago Fernando L. V. B. 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Geographical gradients of species richness: a test of the water‐energy conjecture of Hawkins et al. (2003) using European data for five taxa

ABSTRACTAims We present an analysis of grid‐based species‐richness data for European plants, mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, designed to test the proposition of Hawkins et al. (2003a) that the single best factor describing richness variation switches from the water regime to the energy regime in the mid‐latitudes and that the ‘breakpoint’ is related to the physiological character of the taxa. We go on to develop subregional models showing the extent to which regional model fits vary as a function of the extent of the study system, and compare the relative performance of ‘water’, ‘energy’ and ‘water–energy’ models of richness for southern, northern and pan‐European models.Location Western Europe.Methods We use atlas data comprising species range data for 187 species of mammals, 445 species of breeding birds, 58 amphibians, 91 reptiles and 2362 plant species, inserted into a c. 50 × 50 km grid cell system. We used 11 modelled climate variables, averaged for the period 1961–90. Statistical analyses were carried out using generalized additive models (GAMs), with splines simplified to a maximum of four degrees of freedom, and we tested for spatial autocorrelation using Moran's I values obtained at 10 different distance intervals. We selected favoured models on the grounds of deviance explained combined with a simple parsimony criterion, such that we selected either: (1) the best two‐variable energy, water or water–energy model, or (2) a four‐variable water–energy model, where the latter improved on the best two‐variable model by a minimum of 5% deviance explained.Results Threshold energy values, at which richness shows a transition from an increasing to a decreasing function of annual solar radiation, were identified for all taxa apart from reptiles. We found conditional support for the switch from dominance of water variables (southern models) to energy variables (northern models). Our favoured models switched between ‘water’ and ‘energy’ for mammals, and between ‘energy’ and ‘water–energy’ for birds, depending on whether we used data of pan‐European extent, southern or northern subsets. Deviance explained in our favoured models varied from 15% (birds, southern Europe) to 72% (amphibians, northern Europe), i.e. ranging from very poor to good fits with the data. Comparison with previous work indicates that our models are generally consistent with (if sometimes weaker than) previous findings.Main conclusions Our models are incomplete representations of factors influencing macro‐scale richness patterns across Europe, taking no explicit account of, for example, topographic variation, human influences or long‐term climatic variation. However, with the exception of birds, for which only the northern model attains over one‐third deviance explained, the models show that climate can account for meaningful proportions of the deviance. We find general support for considering water and energy regimes together in modelling species richness, and for the proposition that water is more limiting in southern Europe and energy in the north. Our analyses demonstrate the sensitivity of model outcomes to the geographical location and extent of the study system, illustrating that simple curve‐fitting exercises like these, particularly if based on regions with the complex history and geography characteristic of Europe, are unlikely to provide the basis for global, predictive models. However, such exercises may be of value in detecting which aspects of water and energy regimes may be of most importance in refining independently generated global models for regional application.

Geographical gradients of species richness: a test of the water-energy conjecture of ) using European data for five taxa

Geographical gradients of species richness: a test of the water-energy conjecture of ) using European data for five taxa

The International Biogeography Society and the inaugural Alfred Russel Wallace Award

The International Biogeography Society and the inaugural Alfred Russel Wallace Award