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
Diet Composition and Nutritional Niche Breadth Variability in Juvenile White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias)
TL;DR: There was evidence of increased batoid consumption by males relative to females, and a potential size-based increase in shark and mammal prey consumption, corroborating established ontogenetic increases in trophic level documented elsewhere for white sharks.
Journal ArticleDOI
Distance to range edge determines sensitivity to deforestation
C. David L. Orme,Sarah Mayor,Sarah Mayor,Luiz dos Anjos,Pedro Ferreira Develey,Jack H. Hatfield,José Carlos Morante-Filho,José Carlos Morante-Filho,Jason M. Tylianakis,Jason M. Tylianakis,Alexandre Uezu,Cristina Banks-Leite +11 more
TL;DR: It is found that both within and across Atlantic Forest bird species, populations are more sensitive to deforestation when near their range edge, and that sensitivity to habitat loss is dependent on where a population is located within its range.
Journal ArticleDOI
The relationship between environmental niche breadth and geographic range size across plant species
Journal ArticleDOI
Wing morphology and migration status, but not body size, habitat or Rapoport's rule predict range size in North-American dragonflies (Odonata: Libellulidae)
TL;DR: A multi-variable approach is used in a phylogenetic comparative contex approach to understand why species range sizes vary and to predict the impact of environmental change on biodiversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Phylogenetic conservatism of climatic niche in bats
TL;DR: Evidence of phylogenetic niche conservatism is found at the order and family levels but not at the species level, and evolution of climatic niches is non-stationary across the order Chiroptera, consistent with the different histories of clades.
References
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Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test
TL;DR: Funnel plots, plots of the trials' effect estimates against sample size, are skewed and asymmetrical in the presence of publication bias and other biases Funnel plot asymmetry, measured by regression analysis, predicts discordance of results when meta-analyses are compared with single large trials.
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TL;DR: It is concluded that H and I2, which can usually be calculated for published meta-analyses, are particularly useful summaries of the impact of heterogeneity, and one or both should be presented in publishedMeta-an analyses in preference to the test for heterogeneity.
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Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package
TL;DR: The metafor package provides functions for conducting meta-analyses in R and includes functions for fitting the meta-analytic fixed- and random-effects models and allows for the inclusion of moderators variables (study-level covariates) in these models.