Overdispersion of body size in Australian desert lizard communities at local scales only: no evidence for the Narcissus effect

Both local and regional processes may contribute to community diversity and structure at local scales. Although many studies have investigated patterns of local or regional community structure, few have addressed the extent to which local community structure influences patterns within regional species pools. Here we investigate the role of body size in community assembly at local and regional scales in Ctenotus lizards from arid Australia. Ctenotus has long been noted for its exceptional species diversity in the Australian arid-zone, and previous studies have attempted to elucidate the processes underlying species coexistence within communities of these lizards. However, no consensus has emerged on the role of interspecific competition in the assembly and maintenance of Ctenotus communities. We studied Ctenotus communities at several hundred sites in the arid interior of Australia to test the hypothesis that body sizes within local and regional Ctenotus assemblages should be overdispersed relative to null models of community assembly, and we explored the relationship between body size dispersion at local and regional scales. Results indicate a striking pattern of community-wide overdispersion of body size at local scales, as measured by the variance in size ratios among co-occurring species. However, we find no evidence for body size overdispersion within regional species pools, suggesting a lack of correspondence between processes influencing the distribution of species phenotypes at local and regional scales. We suggest that size ratio constancy in Ctenotus communities may have resulted from contemporary ecological interactions among species or ecological character displacement, and we discuss alternative explanations for the observed patterns. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Non-random co-occurrence of native and exotic plant species in Mediterranean grasslands

Invasion by exotic species in Mediterranean grasslands has determined assembly patterns of native and introduced species, knowledge of which provides information on the ecological processes underlying these novel communities. We considered grasslands from Spain and Chile. For each country we considered the whole grassland community and we split species into two subsets: in Chile, species were classified as natives or colonizers (i.e. exotics); in Spain, species were classified as exclusives (present in Spain but not in Chile) or colonizers (Spanish natives and exotics into Chile). We used null models and co-occurrence indices calculated in each country for each one of 15 sites distributed along a precipitation gradient and subjected to similar silvopastoral exploitation. We compared values of species co-occurrence between countries and between species subsets (natives/colonizers in Chile; exclusives/colonizers in Spain) within each country and we characterised them according to climatic variables. We hypothesized that: a) the different coexistence time of the species in both regions should give rise to communities presenting a spatial pattern further from random in Spain than in Chile, b) the co-occurrence patterns in the grasslands are affected by mesoclimatic factors in both regions. The patterns of co-occurrence are similar in Spain and Chile, mostly showing a spatial pattern more segregated than expected by random. The colonizer species are more segregated in Spain than in Chile, possibly determined by the longer residence time of the species in the source area than in the invaded one. The segregation of species in Chile is related to water availability, being species less segregated in habitat with greater water deficit; in Spain no relationship with climatic variables was found. After an invasion process, our results suggest that the possible process of alteration of the original Chilean communities has not prevented the assembly between the native and colonizer species together.     

The partitioning of diversity: showing Theseus a way out of the labyrinth

A methodology for partitioning of biodiversity into α, β and γ components has long been debated, resulting in different mathematical frameworks. Recently, use of the Rao quadratic entropy index has been advocated since it allows comparison of various facets of diversity (e.g. taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional) within the same mathematical framework. However, if not well implemented, the Rao index can easily yield biologically meaningless results and lead into a mathematical labyrinth. As a practical guideline for ecologists, we present a critical synthesis of diverging implementations of the index in the recent literature and a new extension of the index for measuring β‐diversity. First, we detail correct computation of the index that needs to be applied in order not to obtain negative β‐diversity values, which are ecologically unacceptable, and elucidate the main approaches to calculate the Rao quadratic entropy at different spatial scales. Then, we emphasize that, similar to other entropy measures, the Rao index often produces lower‐than‐expected β‐diversity values. To solve this, we extend a correction based on equivalent numbers, as proposed by Jost (2007), to the Rao index. We further show that this correction can be applied to additive partitioning of diversity and not only its multiplicative form. These developments around the Rao index open up an exciting avenue to develop an estimator of turnover diversity across different environmental and temporal scales, allowing meaningful comparisons of partitioning across species, phylogenetic and functional diversities within the same mathematical framework. We also propose a set of R functions, based on existing developments, which perform different key computations to apply this framework in biodiversity science.     

广西酸性土地区亚热带落叶阔叶林的群落学特点及其合理利用的方向

亚热带落叶阔叶林在大多数情况下是常绿阔叶林或山地常绿落叶阔叶混交林遭受破坏以后发展起来的一个演替阶段。本文对其群落外貌、结构、种类组成和演替进行了比较详尽的分析,充分论证了上述的结论。组成这个类型的建群种多是阳性速生树种,木材的用途广泛,应该加以利用,任意砍伐烧垦和改种其它针叶树种都是不妥当的。一般可待其达到成熟龄时予以择伐利用,并促使群落向常绿阔叶林的方向发展。     

广西的南桦林和西桦林及其演替趋向

在亚热带地区,当常绿阔叶林或山地常绿落叶阔叶混交林被砍伐后,桦木常常迅速侵入并发展成林,构成亚热带落叶阔叶林的一种重要类型,在自然发展过程中,它们又将向原来的森林类型恢复和演变。本文重点介绍了广西南桦林和西桦林的一些群落类型及其演替替向、期待发挥它们在林业建设中应有的作用。     

元谋干热河谷生态恢复区昆虫多样性研究

以元谋退化生态系统初始生态恢复中人工构建植被为研究对象,在样地调查的基础上,对比分析了退化生态系统和恢复生态系统昆虫群落多样性组成与结构的恢复状况及其对人工群落类型的生态响应。结果表明,植物群落组成是影响昆虫群落多样性的关键因子。与天然植被相比,混交林促进了昆虫在退化地的扩散和定居,物种多样性明显增加。主成分分析排序将6种生境分为两大类:第Ⅰ类为赤桉纯林,代表物种单一、林下空旷、环境干燥为特点的植被;第Ⅱ类为扭黄茅草坡、车桑子灌丛及赤桉 银合欢、赤桉 相思、相思 银合欢3种混交林,代表物种相对复杂,生境偏向湿润的植被。不同生境的特有昆虫和优势昆虫种类和数量分析表明,在3种混交林中,相思 合欢恢复的效果较赤桉 相思与赤桉 合欢显著,是最好的先锋群落植物混交模式,能够较快改良生境,提高其物种多样性。但由于造林面积较小,植被恢复时间短,受人为干扰较大,昆虫多样性恢复的效果还不明显。     

广西拟赤杨林分类和演替的研究

拟赤杨林是亚热带落叶阔叶林的一个群落类型 ,属于常绿阔叶林演替系列的一个演替阶段 ,主要见于东部中亚热带地区海拔 1 30 0m以下的红壤和黄壤山地山坡中下部环境比较湿润的地方 ,本文研究划分出 3个群丛纲和 1 3个群丛。它向常绿阔叶林恢复的演替趋向 ,从 1 3个群丛之间的群落外貌 ,结构和种类组成变化的分析可以得到充分的证明。     

Soil seed bank characteristics in Cameroonian rainforests and implications for post-logging forest recovery

The soil seed bank is considered as an important component for resilience of climacic vegetation. Whereas several related studies have been conducted in Asian, American and some African tropical forests, no investigation has ever been conducted in Central African rainforests, especially in logged forests where the soil seed bank could contribute to regeneration of timber of trees species. We studied the soil seed bank characteristics in relation to the standing vegetation in three Cameroonian forest zones with different disturbance regimes. There was no significant difference between sites in terms of density of the seed bank; the average mean density was 87.6 seeds m⁻². But dissimilarities of the floristic compositions between sites were quite high. Overall, seeds came from 43 species including three commercial tree species. Whereas the seedlings emerging from soil samples mostly came from weedy and short-lived pioneer species, climax species predominated in the extant vegetation, leading to a very weak similarity between soil seed flora and the surrounding vegetation: Sorensen's index ranged from 3.5 to 7.6%. Canopy openness could significantly affect the species richness of soil seed stocks but not the seed density. These results show that the soil seed bank contribution to the resilience of mature tropical forests is low. In particular, very few timber tree species could benefit from soil seed stocks for their regeneration. Therefore, the development of enrichment techniques including use of the soil seed bank as a source of tree regeneration in such a context would be irrelevant.     

Morphological assembly mechanisms in Neotropical bat assemblages and ensembles within a landscape

Empirical studies on bat assemblages have shown that richness is not appreciably influenced by local processes such as ecological interactions. However, most of these studies have been done in large areas that include high heterogeneity, and they analyse all bat species within such areas, and thus they may be not reflecting local but supra-community conditions. We followed an ecomorphological approach to assess how bat assemblages of species from the families Phyllostomidae and Mormoopidae, and ensembles of frugivorous bats, are assembled in local habitats within a single landscape. We measured the volume of the space defined by wing morphology and quantified the average distance between species within such a volume. Then, we related these measures to local richness. Such relationships were contrasted against relationships with random assemblages to test for statistical differences. At the ensemble level of organization, we found that the frugivorous bat morphological assembly mechanism is different from random patterns, and it corresponds to the volume-increasing model. On the other hand, bat assembly mechanisms may be ubiquitous at the assemblage level, because groups of species coexisting in a local habitat and delimited only by phylogeny include more than one ecological group with no potential to interact. Assembling processes are crucial to an understanding of species diversity in local communities, and ecomorphological analyses are very promising tools that may help in their study.     

Pathways, mechanisms and predictability of vegetation change during tropical dry forest succession

The development of forest succession theory has been based on studies in temperate and tropical wet forests. As rates and pathways of succession vary with the environment, advances in successional theory and study approaches are challenged by controversies derived from such variation and by the scarcity of studies in other ecosystems. During five years, we studied development pathways and dynamics in a chronosequence spanning from very early to late successional stages (ca. 1–60 years) in a tropical dry forest of Mexico. We (1) contrasted dynamic pathways of change in structure, diversity, and species composition with static, chronosequence-based trends, (2) examined how structure and successional dynamics of guilds of trees shape community change, and (3) assessed the predictability of succession in this system. Forest diversity and structure increased with time but tree density stabilized early in succession. Dynamic pathways matched chronosequence trends. Succession consisted of two tree-dominated phases characterized by the development and dynamics of a pioneer and a mature forest species guild, respectively. Pioneer species dominated early recruitment (until ca. 10 years after abandonment), and declined before slower growing mature-forest species became dominant or reached maximum development rates (after 40–45 years). Pioneers promoted their replacement early in succession, while mature-forest species recruited and grew constantly throughout the process, with their lowest mortality coinciding with the peak of pioneer abundance. In contrast to prevailing stochastic views, we observed an orderly, community driven series of changes in this dry forest secondary succession. Chronosequences thus represent a valuable approach for revealing system-specific successional pathways, formulating hypotheses on causes and mechanisms and, in combination with repeated sampling, evaluating the effects of vegetation dynamics in pathway variation.