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 Marginalization Facilitated Diversification in Conifers
TL;DR: No strong evidence is found that resistance to extinction was the main mechanism of species selection in conifers, and having a marginal ecological niche relative to angiosperm competitors facilitated diversification in con ifers, likely due to increased speciation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Linking evolutionary dynamics to species extinction for flowering plants in global biodiversity hotspots
Quan-bo Fu,Xian-Han Huang,Lijuan Li,Yi Jing Jin,Hong Qian,Xinyuan Kuai,Yaojun Ye,Hengchang Wang,Tao Deng,Hang Sun +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors link evolutionary history to species extinction risk for flowering plants (angiosperms) in global biodiversity hotspots and show that the extinction risk may be more related to evolutionary history than to species' traits.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tree Use, Niche Breadth and Overlap for Excavation by Woodpeckers in Subtropical Piedmont Forests of Northwestern Argentina
Alejandro Alberto Schaaf,Román A. Ruggera,Constanza Guadalupe Vivanco,Ever Tallei,Analía Benavidez,Sebastián Albanesi,Luis Rivera,Natalia Politi +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the use of trees by woodpecker species in the subtropical piedmont forests of northwestern Argentina by using the analysis of niche selection, breadth and overlap in a total of five woodpeck species of different body size.
Dissertation
Predicting decline of threatened species, invasiveness of alien species, and invasibility of seminatural habitats: A case study from threatened coastal heathlands and semi-natural grasslands in western Norway
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a method to solve the problem of homonymity in homonym identification, i.e., homonymization, in the context of homology.
Journal ArticleDOI
The mechanisms explaining tree species richness and composition are convergent in a megadiverse hotspot
TL;DR: A combined contribution of environment, stochasticity, and historical-dispersion processes in patterns of biodiversity is suggested, indicating convergence of driving factors for both descriptors of plant communities.
References
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