La macroecología surgió a finales de la década de 1980 y se definió como un programa de investigación enfocado a describir y entender los patrones de biodiversidad en escalas espaciales y temporales amplias. En esta revisión identificamos: a) las principales aportaciones teóricoconceptuales y prácticas, desarrolladas por autores mexicanos; b) los vacíos de conocimiento y desafíos teórico-metodológicos, y c) perspectivas en este campo de estudio en México. A través de búsquedas en la base de datos de artículos científicos registrados en la Web of Science y de búsquedas dirigidas, encontramos 163 artículos, la mayoría publicados en la última década. Un elevado porcentaje de los trabajos se desarrollaron a una escala regional (37%) y nacional (31%) y se concentraron en el medio terrestre (90%). Los grupos biológicos más estudiados fueron los mamíferos (33%), las plantas vasculares (21%) y las aves (17%). Los temas más estudiados en México fueron los patrones de diversidad, aspectos del nicho ecológico, el análisis de la diversidad a distintas escalas (alfa, beta y gamma) y el área de distribución geográfica de las especies. Es importante incorporar aspectos de abundancia y de diversidad filogenética y funcional que permitan incrementar la capacidad explicativa y predictiva de la macroecología.
Understanding local coexistence and broad‐scale species co‐occurrence patterns are central questions in ecology and macroecology. Niche theory relates both spatial scales by considering the resources (Eltonian niche) and conditions (Grinnellian niche) used by species and allow us to assess the contribution of these factors for species co‐occurrence. Indeed, combining local field data on diet preferences and climatic variables across species distributions can help us to evaluate their co‐occurrence while jointly considering resources and conditions on niche partitioning. Here, using information drawn from literature, we evaluated the relationship between geographic, climatic (Grinnellian) and trophic (Eltonian) niche dimensions among five highly sympatric felid species in favoring species co‐occurrence at broad spatial scales across the Neotropical region. We obtain potential geographic distributions of species through ecological niche models. Then, we calculated the pairwise species overlaps for each niche dimension and tested for a relationship between each pair of dimensions using Mantel and partial Mantel tests. We found a positive and significant relationship between geographic co‐occurrence and climatic overlap. This relationship remained after controlling for trophic overlap. Geographic and trophic overlap, as well as climatic and trophic overlap, did not show significant relationships. We conclude that the high degree of geographic co‐occurrence among our studied felid species is favored by climate and that their high degree of trophic overlap is not limiting their co‐occurrence pattern.
Biotic interactions are a key component of the proper functioning of ecosystems. However, information on biotic interactions is spatially and taxonomically biased and limited to several groups. The most efficient strategy to fill these gaps is to combine spatial information (species ranges) with different sources of information (functional and field data) to infer potential interactions. This approach is possible due to the fact that there is a correspondence between the traits of two trophic levels (e.g., predator and prey sizes are correlated). Therefore, our objective was to evaluate the performance of the joint use of spatial, functional and field data to infer properties of the predator–prey interaction for five neotropical cats. To do this, we used presence–absence matrices to obtain lists of potential prey species per grid-cell for each predator range. These lists were filtered according to different criteria (models), and for each model, an interaction property was estimated and compared with field observations. Our results show that the use of functional information and co-occurrence allows us to generate values similar to those observed in the field. We also observed that there were differences in model performance related to the intrinsic characteristics of the predator (body size) and the interaction property being evaluated.
Temporal variation in ecological and geographical distribution of Amazona finschi (Psittaciformes: Psittacidae). The lilac-crowned parrot (Amazona finschi) is an endemic species restricted to lowlands of the Mexican Pacific coast and is currently considered as endangered. It has been documented that it shows altitudinal and seasonal migrations along its distributional range, suggesting that its ecological and temporal distribution is still uncertain. We modeled the potential distribution of the A. finschi considering the two main activity seasons for the species: reproductive and non-reproductive. We used 428 historical occurrences , obtained from open access databases, combined with five environmental layers: three climatic and two topographic for each season, to perform ecological niche models using Maxent. We then transferred each model to the rest of the months to analyze the seasonal movements guided by climate. Differences in ecological variables between seasons were evaluated using a t-test. The geographic correspondence among the parrot distribution and the resources (plants) distributions were analyzed by superimposing maps. A marked seasonality in the distribution of A. finschi was observed. Ecologically, the species displays greater amplitude during the breeding seasons in terms of minimum temperature, but a noticeable reduction as far as precipitation is concerned. The distribution of food and nesting resources largely corresponds to the distribution of this parrot. There is a wide area in the center of the geographical distribution in which the species finds conditions that meet both periods of activity, as well as transition conditions between these periods. Finally, our results on the seasonal variation in the geographical and ecological distribution of this species, possess a strong ecological meaning in the understanding of other species distribution, particularly those associated with highly seasonal environments, and definitively will contribute to the conservation of this species. Rev. Biol. Trop. 65 (3):
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