Journal ArticleDOI
Niche breadth predicts geographical range size: a general ecological pattern.
TLDR
Despite significant variability in the strength of the relationship among studies, the general positive relationship suggests that specialist species might be disproportionately vulnerable to habitat loss and climate change due to synergistic effects of a narrow niche and small range size.Abstract:
The range of resources that a species uses (i.e. its niche breadth) might determine the geographical area it can occupy, but consensus on whether a niche breadth–range size relationship generally exists among species has been slow to emerge. The validity of this hypothesis is a key question in ecology in that it proposes a mechanism for commonness and rarity, and if true, may help predict species' vulnerability to extinction. We identified 64 studies that measured niche breadth and range size, and we used a meta-analytic approach to test for the presence of a niche breadth–range size relationship. We found a significant positive relationship between range size and environmental tolerance breadth (z = 0.49), habitat breadth (z = 0.45), and diet breadth (z = 0.28). The overall positive effect persisted even when incorporating sampling effects. Despite significant variability in the strength of the relationship among studies, the general positive relationship suggests that specialist species might be disproportionately vulnerable to habitat loss and climate change due to synergistic effects of a narrow niche and small range size. An understanding of the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that drive and cause deviations from this niche breadth–range size pattern is an important future research goal.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Ecological niche features override biological traits and taxonomic relatedness as predictors of occupancy and abundance in lake littoral macroinvertebrates
Jani Heino,Kimmo Tolonen +1 more
TL;DR: It is strongly suggested that niche position, a measure of habitat availability for littoral macroinvertebrates, is the chief determinant of their occupancy and abundance, which has important implications for ecology and conservation of species.
Journal ArticleDOI
Responses of global waterbird populations to climate change vary with latitude
Tatsuya Amano,Tamás Székely,Tamás Székely,Hannah S. Wauchope,Brody Sandel,Szabolcs Nagy,Taej Mundkur,Tom Langendoen,Daniel E. Blanco,Nicole L. Michel,William J. Sutherland +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, the abundance response of waterbirds, an indicator taxon of wetland biodiversity, to climate change at 6,822 sites between 55°S and 64°N was quantified.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental controls on geographic range size in marine animal genera
TL;DR: Genera with roughly equal preference for carbonates and clastics do not have substantially broader geographic ranges than those with a distinct affinity, suggesting that, at this scale of analysis, spatial extent of preferred environment outweighs breadth of environmental preference in governing geographic range.
Journal ArticleDOI
Dimensions of invasiveness: Links between local abundance, geographic range size, and habitat breadth in Europe's alien and native floras
Trevor S. Fristoe,Milan Chytrý,Wayne Dawson,Franz Essl,Rubén H. Heleno,Holger Kreft,Noëlie Maurel,Jan Pergl,Petr Pyšek,Petr Pyšek,Hanno Seebens,Patrick Weigelt,Pablo Vargas,Qiang Yang,Fabio Attorre,Erwin Bergmeier,Markus Bernhardt-Römermann,Idoia Biurrun,Steffen Boch,Gianmaria Bonari,Zoltán Botta-Dukát,Hans Henrik Bruun,Chaeho Byun,Andraž Čarni,Andraž Čarni,Maria Laura Carranza,Jane A. Catford,Bruno Enrico Leone Cerabolini,Eduardo Chacón-Madrigal,Daniela Ciccarelli,Renata Ćušterevska,Iris de Ronde,Jürgen Dengler,Jürgen Dengler,Valentin Golub,Rense Haveman,Nate Hough-Snee,Ute Jandt,Florian Jansen,Anna Kuzemko,Filip Küzmič,Jonathan Lenoir,Armin Macanović,Corrado Marcenò,Adam R. Martin,Sean T. Michaletz,Akira Mori,Ülo Niinemets,Tomáš Peterka,Remigiusz Pielech,Valerijus Rašomavičius,Solvita Rūsiņa,Arildo S. Dias,Mária Šibíková,Urban Šilc,Angela Stanisci,Steven Jansen,Jens-Christian Svenning,Grzegorz Swacha,Fons van der Plas,Kiril Vassilev,Mark van Kleunen,Mark van Kleunen +62 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the invasiveness of European alien seed plant flora and find that alien species originating from other continents, particularly acquisitive growth strategists, were among the most successful invaders in Europe.
Journal ArticleDOI
Contribution of rare and common species to subterranean species richness patterns.
TL;DR: It is shown that even in habitats with the domination of rare species, it is still common species that drive SRPs, due to an even spatial distribution of rarespecies or spatial mismatch in hotspots of rare and common species.
References
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