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1.
    
Extant species in human‐dominated landscapes differ in their sensitivity to habitat loss and fragmentation, although extinctions induced by environmental alteration reduce variation and result in a surviving subset of species with some degree of ‘resistance’. Here, we test the degree to which variable responses to habitat alteration are (1) essentially an inherent property of a taxon subject to constraints imposed by its geographical range, as suggested by Swihart et al. (2003), (2) a function of the landscape in which a species occurs, or (3) a function of spatial trends occurring on large scales. We used data collected on 33 vertebrate species during 2001–04 across the upper Wabash River basin, Indiana, in 35 square ‘landscapes’, each 23 km2 in size. Six species of forest rodent, six species of grassland rodents, seven species of bats, eight species of aquatic turtles, and six species of amphibians were sampled at 504, 212, 590, 228, and 625 patches, respectively. The fraction of patches of primary habitat (e.g. forests for tree squirrels, wetlands for aquatic turtles) occupied by a target species was used as a response variable. On a basin‐wide scale, 47% of variation in proportional occupancy among species could be explained by taxon‐specific variables; occupancy rates were related positively to niche breadth and negatively to the proximity of a geographical range boundary. After controlling for species effects, landscape‐level occupancy rates varied significantly for 16 of 33 species, with variation partitioned among landscape variables alone (mean = 11% of variation), spatial trend variables alone (26%), and both variable sets jointly (8%). Among landscape variables, percentage forest cover positively affected occupancy rates of three bat species and a tree squirrel. Variation in occupancy rates among landscapes was consistent with large‐scale spatial trends for 13 species. Our findings demonstrate the general importance of niche breadth as a predictor of species responses to habitat alteration and highlight the importance of viewing the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation at multiple spatial scales.  相似文献   

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Climate warming threatens the survival of species at their warm, trailing‐edge range boundaries but also provides opportunities for the ecological release of populations at the cool, leading edges of their distributions. Thus, as the climate warms, leading‐edge populations are expected to utilize an increased range of habitat types, leading to larger population sizes and range expansion. Here, we test the hypothesis that the habitat associations of British butterflies have expanded over three decades of climate warming. We characterize the habitat breadth of 27 southerly distributed species from 77 monitoring transects between 1977 and 2007 by considering changes in densities of butterflies across 11 habitat types. Contrary to expectation, we find that 20 of 27 (74%) butterfly species showed long‐term contractions in their habitat associations, despite some short‐term expansions in habitat breadth in warmer‐than‐usual years. Thus, we conclude that climatic warming has ameliorated habitat contractions caused by other environmental drivers to some extent, but that habitat degradation continues to be a major driver of reductions in habitat breadth and population density of butterflies.  相似文献   

3.
王波  王跃招 《四川动物》2007,26(2):477-480
全球两栖动物正以远超过自然灭绝的高速率灭绝,这与生境丧失和景观破碎化有着直接关系。生境丧失导致两栖动物的生存空间减少,使局部种群消失,而景观破碎化则导致两栖动物种群之间的隔离度增加,不利于动物的繁殖和扩散。但两者往往是同时出现,相互作用。复合种群、景观连接度、景观遗传学及景观模型模拟等理论和方法的发展,为在生境丧失与破碎化景观下两栖动物的种群结构、组成和动态变化研究提供了理论基础和技术方法。同时景观生态学中特别重视研究的尺度,生境破碎化是发生在景观尺度下的生境变化过程,因此对生境破碎化的影响应该从现有的主要集中在斑块尺度和斑块-景观尺度转变到景观尺度上来。  相似文献   

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Species are thought to have more restricted niches towards their range boundaries, although this has rarely been quantified systematically. We analysed transect data for 41 butterfly species along climatic gradients within Britain and show that 71% of species have broader niches at sites with milder winters. Shifts in habitat associations are considerable across most species' ranges; averaged across all 41 species, we estimate that if 26% of individuals were associated with the favoured habitat on the species' warmest transect, then 70% of individuals would be confined to this habitat on the species' coldest transect. Species with more southerly distributions in Britain showed the greatest changes in their habitat associations. We conclude that geographic variation in realized niche breadth is common and relatively large, especially near range boundaries, and should be taken into account in conserving species under changing climates.  相似文献   

6.
Calcium is an essential requirement for the successful growth and development of gastropod molluscs. Data for British freshwater gastropods were used to examine the relationship between environmental calcium requirements and British and European range sizes. At both spatial scales calciphile species, which require a high level of environmental calcium, had significantly smaller range sizes than species able to exploit a wide range of environmental calcium levels. However, at least in Britain, range size may also be influenced by the availability of suitable habitat. British and European range sizes were significantly correlated. This study provides evidence for niche‐based explanations of range size variation, and suggests that both niche breadth and niche availability are important in determining range size.  相似文献   

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  • 1 Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and habitat degradation are the greatest threats to mammals in Europe and the rest of the world. Despite the fact that extensive literature exists, no comprehensive review or synthesis is available to date and this may slow down scientific progress and hamper conservation efforts.
  • 2 The goal of this study is to understand if and in what direction progress has been made in the study of the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on the spatial distribution of European terrestrial mammals. Firstly, we carry out a general synthesis which is structured around 11 key points. The aim of this point‐by‐point analysis is to identify trends, knowledge gaps and any significant bias in the available literature, and to highlight strengths and shortfalls of the different approaches which have to date been applied. Secondly, we follow a species‐specific systematic approach: for each species, we synthesise key results.
  • 3 Our results show how substantial progress has been hampered for several reasons including: a large predominance of small‐scale field studies of short duration, and a generalised lack of control of: (i) confounding variables; (ii) spatial autocorrelation; and (iii) false absences. Also, despite the relatively high number of studies, few were theoretical studies and even fewer were meta‐analyses. The lack of meta‐analyses is likely to be due to the small amount of crucial details included in the publications, such as model parameters or information on the landscape context (such as the amount of residual forest cover).
  • 4 We synthesise the main results for 14 species. The level of progress is highly variable: for some species, such as the red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris, a series of long‐term, large‐scale process‐oriented studies has allowed an in‐depth understanding of its ecology in fragmented landscapes. On the other hand, with other species such as the bank vole Myodes glareolus, despite a relatively large number of field studies, little progress has been made.
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8.
  总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
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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 (= 0.49), habitat breadth (= 0.45), and diet breadth (= 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.  相似文献   

11.
  总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
Aim  The degree to which a species is predictably encountered within its range varies tremendously across species. Understanding why some species occur less frequently within their range than others has important consequences for conservation and for analyses of ecological patterns based on range maps. We examined whether patterns in geographical range occupancy can be explained by species-level traits.
Location  North America.
Methods  We used survey data from 1993 to 2002 from the North American Breeding Bird Survey along with digital range maps produced by NatureServe to calculate range occupancy for 298 species of terrestrial birds. We tested whether species traits explained variation in range occupancy values using linear regression techniques.
Results  We found three species traits that together explained more than half of the variation in range occupancy. Population density and niche breadth were positively correlated with occupancy, while niche position was negatively correlated with occupancy.
Main conclusions  Our results suggest that high range occupancy will occur in species that are common at sites on which they occur, that tolerate a relatively wide range of ecological conditions and that tend to have ranges centred on areas with common environmental conditions. Furthermore, it appears that niche-based characteristics may explain patterns of distribution and abundance from local habitats up to the scale of geographical ranges.  相似文献   

12.
    
Aim In aquatic ecosystems, standing (lentic) and running (lotic) waters differ fundamentally in their stability and persistence, shaping the comparative population genetic structure, geographical range size and speciation rates of lentic versus lotic lineages. While the drivers of this pattern remain incompletely understood, the suite of traits making up the ability of a species to establish new populations is instrumental in determining such differences. Here we explore the degree to which the association between habitat type and geographical range size results from differences in dispersal ability or fundamental niche breadth in the members of the Enochrus bicolor complex, an aquatic beetle clade with species across the lentic–lotic divide. Location Western Mediterranean, with a special focus on North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. Methods DNA sequences for four loci were obtained from species of the E. bicolor complex and analysed using phylogenetic inference. Dispersal and establishment abilities were assessed in lentic–lotic species pairs of the complex, using flight wing morphometrics and thermal tolerance ranges as surrogates, respectively. Results There were clear differences in range size between the lotic and lentic taxa of the complex, which appears to have had a lotic origin with two transitions to standing waters. Only small differences were observed in temperature tolerance and acclimation ability between the two lotic–lentic sister species studied. By contrast, wing morphometrics revealed clear, consistent differences between lotic and lentic Enochrus species pairs, the latter having a higher dispersal capacity. Main conclusions We hypothesize that there have been two habitat shifts from lotic to lentic waters, which have allowed marked expansions in geographical range size in western Mediterranean species of the E. bicolor complex. Differences in dispersal rather than in establishment ability appear to underlie differences in geographical range extent, as transitions to lentic waters were associated with changes in wing morphology, but not in thermal tolerance range. In this lineage of water beetles, selection for dispersal in geologically short‐lived lentic systems has driven the evolution of larger range sizes in lentic taxa compared with those of their lotic relatives.  相似文献   

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Habitat fragmentation and loss affect population stability and demographic processes, increasing the extinction risk of species. We studied Anolis heterodermus populations inhabiting large and small Andean scrubland patches in three fragmented landscapes in the Sabana de Bogotá (Colombia) to determine the effect of habitat fragmentation and loss on population dynamics. We used the capture‐mark‐recapture method and multistate models to estimate vital rates for each population. We estimated growth population rate and the most important processes that affect λ by elasticity analysis of vital rates. We tested the effects of habitat fragmentation and loss on vital rates of lizard populations. All six isolated populations showed a positive or an equilibrium growth rate (λ = 1), and the most important demographic process affecting λ was the growth to first reproduction. Populations from landscapes with less scrubland natural cover showed higher stasis of young adults. Populations in highly fragmented landscapes showed highest juvenile survival and growth population rates. Independent of the landscape's habitat configuration and connectivity, populations from larger scrubland patches showed low adult survivorship, but high transition rates. Populations varied from a slow strategy with low growth and delayed maturation in smaller patches to a fast strategy with high growth and early maturation in large patches. This variation was congruent with the fast‐slow continuum hypothesis and has serious implications for Andean lizard conservation and management strategies. We suggest that more stable lizard populations will be maintained if different management strategies are adopted according to patch area and habitat structure.  相似文献   

15.
    
Land‐use changes, which cause loss, degradation, and fragmentation of natural habitats, are important anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity change. However, there is an ongoing debate about how fragmentation per se affects biodiversity in a given amount of habitat. Here, we illustrate why it is important to distinguish two different aspects of fragmentation to resolve this debate: (a) geometric fragmentation effects, which exclusively arise from the spatial distributions of species and habitat fragments, and (b) demographic fragmentation effects due to reduced fragment sizes, and/or changes in fragment isolation, edge effects, or species interactions. While most empirical studies are primarily interested in quantifying demographic fragmentation effects, geometric effects are typically invoked as post hoc explanations of biodiversity responses to fragmentation per se. Here, we present an approach to quantify geometric fragmentation effects on species survival and extinction probabilities. We illustrate this approach using spatial simulations where we systematically varied the initial abundances and distribution patterns (i.e., random, aggregated, or regular) of species as well as habitat amount and fragmentation per se. As expected, we found no geometric fragmentation effects when species were randomly distributed. However, when species were aggregated, we found positive effects of fragmentation per se on survival probability for a large range of scenarios. For regular species distributions, we found weakly negative geometric effects. These findings are independent of the ecological mechanisms which generate nonrandom species distributions. Our study helps to reconcile seemingly contradictory results of previous fragmentation studies. Since intraspecific aggregation is a ubiquitous pattern in nature, our findings imply widespread positive geometric fragmentation effects. This expectation is supported by many studies that find positive effects of fragmentation per se on species occurrences and diversity after controlling for habitat amount. We outline how to disentangle geometric and demographic fragmentation effects, which is critical for predicting the response of biodiversity to landscape change.  相似文献   

16.
生境破碎化包括生境丧失与破碎化两个相对独立的过程,为探讨这两个过程各自对生物多样性的影响,本文利用苜蓿草地实验模型系统(EMS)构建了36个小区研究不同生境丧失与破碎化对昆虫群落及不同类群的影响,包括18个破碎化小区与18个连续小区,破碎化小区全部采用1 m×1 m(H=1)破碎,连续小区苜蓿连片(H=0),生境丧失采...  相似文献   

17.
    
ABSTRACT Road mortality is often spatially aggregated, and there is a need for models that accurately and efficiently predict hot spots within a road network for mitigation. We surveyed 145 points throughout a 353-km highway network in New York State, USA, for roadkill of reptiles and amphibians. We used land cover, wetland configuration, and traffic volume data to identify features that best predicted hot spots of herpetofauna road mortality. We resampled 40 points an additional 4 times over 4 years to evaluate temporal repeatability. Both amphibian and reptile road mortality were spatially clustered, and road-kill hot spots of the 2 taxa overlapped. One survey provided a valid snapshot of spatial patterns of road mortality, and spatial patterns remained stable across time. Road-kill hot spots were located where wetlands approached within 100 m of the road, and the best predictor was a causeway configuration of wetlands (wetlands on both sides of the road). We validated causeways as predictors of road mortality by surveying 180 causeways and 180 random points across 5 regions (17,823 km2) of northeastern New York. Causeways were 3 times more likely than random locations to have amphibian and 12 times more likely to have reptile mortality present, and causeways had a 4 times higher total number of amphibian roadkill and 9 times higher reptile roadkill than did random points. We conclude it is possible to identify valid predictors of hot spots of amphibian and reptile road mortality for use when planning roads or when conducting surveys on existing roads to locate priority areas for mitigation.  相似文献   

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The relative effect of past climate fluctuations and anthropogenic activities on current biome distribution is subject to increasing attention, notably in biodiversity hot spots. In Madagascar, where humans arrived in the last ~4 to 5,000 years, the exact causes of the demise of large vertebrates that cohabited with humans are yet unclear. The prevailing narrative holds that Madagascar was covered with forest before human arrival and that the expansion of grasslands was the result of human‐driven deforestation. However, recent studies have shown that vegetation and fauna structure substantially fluctuated during the Holocene. Here, we study the Holocene history of habitat fragmentation in the north of Madagascar using a population genetics approach. To do so, we infer the demographic history of two northern Madagascar neighbouring, congeneric and critically endangered forest dwelling lemur species—Propithecus tattersalli and Propithecus perrieri—using population genetic analyses. Our results highlight the necessity to consider population structure and changes in connectivity in demographic history inferences. We show that both species underwent demographic fluctuations which most likely occurred after the mid‐Holocene transition. While mid‐Holocene climate change probably triggered major demographic changes in the two lemur species range and connectivity, human settlements that expanded over the last four millennia in northern Madagascar likely played a role in the loss and fragmentation of the forest cover.  相似文献   

20.
    
Aim  We searched for relationships between latitude and both the geographic range size and host specificity of fleas parasitic on small mammals. This provided a test for the hypothesis that specialization is lower, and thus niche breadth is wider, in high-latitude species than in their counterparts at lower latitudes.
Location  We used data on the host specificity and geographic range size of 120 Palaearctic flea species (Siphonaptera) parasitic on small mammals (Soricomorpha, Lagomorpha and Rodentia). Data on host specificity were taken from 33 regions, whereas data on geographic ranges covered the entire distribution of the 120 species.
Methods  Our analyses controlled for the potentially confounding effects of phylogenetic relationships among flea species by means of the independent-contrasts method. We used regressions and structural equation modelling to determine whether the latitudinal position of the geographic range of a flea covaried with either the size of its range or its host specificity. The latter was measured as the number of host species used, as well as by an index providing the average (and variance in) taxonomic distinctness among the host species used by a flea.
Results  Geographic range size was positively correlated with the position of the centre of the range; in other words, fleas with more northerly distributions had larger geographic ranges. Although the number of host species used by a flea did not vary with latitude, both the mean taxonomic distinctness among host species used and its variance increased significantly towards higher latitudes.
Main conclusions  The results indicate that niche breadth in fleas, measured in terms of both its spatial (geographic range size) and biological (host specificity) components, increases at higher latitudes. These findings are compatible with the predictions of recent hypotheses about latitudinal gradients.  相似文献   

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