An Empirical Test of Rapoport's Rule: Elevational Gradients in Montane Butterfly Communities

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Ecological Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ecology. Abstract.We examined the response of montane butterflies to a 1300-m elevational gradient in the Toiyabe Range, a mountain range in the central Great Basin. We tested whether elevational ranges of montane butterflies conform to Rapoport's elevational rule (species at higher elevations have greater elevational ranges). We also tested whether the Rapoport-rescue hypothesis (emigrants from higher elevation populations inflate the species richness of lower-elevation sites) could explain the species richness patterns we observed. In addition, we predicted whether global climate change is likely to perturb current elevational gradients in butterfly species richness. Species presence data were collected from 105 100-m vertical elevational bands in 17 canyons. Elevation and species richness were significantly negatively correlated, although species richness peaked at intermediate elevations, and butterflies in species-rich areas had significantly narrower elevational ranges than species in more depauperate areas. Toiyabe Range butterflies conformed to Rapoport's elevational rule. The Rapoport effect we documented did not result from sampling bias. However, the Rapoport-rescue hypothesis cannot fully explain the elevational gradient in species richness. Environmental severity at either end and favorable conditions near the middle of the elevational gradient likely contributed to high species richness at intermediate elevations. Our models indicated that few butterfly taxa will be lost from the Toiyabe Range in the face of climate change. To maintain present species richness and maximize the potential of Great Basin butterflies to adapt to rapid climate change, we recommend that habitat protection and restoration efforts target not only high elevation WildernessAreas but also intermediate elevations. the problem: in central Nevada, for instance, a dozen people are responsible for the day-to-day management of over 1.2 X 106 ha of National Forest Lands, including four major and several minor mountain ranges. A majority of patterns of species diversity can be explained in terms of environmental gradients (Merriam 1898, Myers and Giller 1988). Elevational gradients in particular constrain the spatial and temporal distributions of numerous organisms (e.g., Merriam 1890, Terborgh 1977, Baz 1987, Yu 1994, Fernandez-Palacios and de Nicolis 1995, Lieberman et al. 1996). Nonetheless, there is a dearth of detailed information on the elevational distributions of plants and animals (Wolda 1987, Stevens 1992, Lieberman et al. 1996).Our primary research objective was to test empirically whether e...

Influence of vegetation physiognomy, elevation and fire frequency on medium and large mammals in two protected areas of the Espinhaço Range

“…The decline in richness due to increasing elevation is widely accepted as a general standard (Rahbek 1995(Rahbek , 2005. Rahbek (1995) highlighted two main models of species distribution along elevational gradients: (1) the monotonic model, in which there is a linear decrease in the number of species with increasing altitude, observed in plants (Stevens 1992), bats (Patterson et al 1996) and birds (Terborgh 1971, 1977, Rahbek 1997 and (2) the dome-shaped model, with higher species richness in the intermediate ranges of the elevation gradient, observed in non-flying mammals (Geise et al 2004), insects (Mccoy 1990, Fleishman et al 1998) and birds (Rajão and Cerqueira 2006).…”

Relationship between Survival Rate of Avian Artificial Nests and Forest Vegetation Structure along a Tropical Altitudinal Gradient on Mount Cameroon

“…Ecological patterns along latitudes tend to be similar to those along elevations (Skutch 1985, Stevens 1992, Fleishman et al 1998, Sanders 2002. Thus, investigating altitudinal patterns (especially those from tropical mountains) might provide a deeper insight into the latitudinal variation of nest predation in birds.…”

Modeling and Predicting Species Occurrence Using Broad‐Scale Environmental Variables: an Example with Butterflies of the Great Basin

“…From 1996 to 1999 we used standard methods to conduct comprehensive inventories of butterflies (Shapiro 1975;Thomas & Mallorie 1985;Swengel 1990;Kremen 1992;Pollard & Yates 1993;Harding et al 1995) in 10 canyons in the Toquima Range, a 1750-km 2 mountain range in the central Great Basin. Field methods are described in detail by Fleishman et al (1998Fleishman et al ( , 1999. We divided canyons into multiple segments (49 total ), each extending for approximately 100 vertical m from base to crest.…”

“…Use of linear relationships alone may be insufficient to characterize the response of a species to IVs. For example, montane species often show preferences for intermediate elevations (Fleishman et al 1998), and linear functions cannot model this behavior. Therefore, we also incorporated squared terms into the modeling procedure for the nine IVs we deemed sensible, based on the ecology of the species, to treat in this way ( Table 1).…”

“…Not only do numerous native species face substantial threats, but exotic species, including cheatgrass ( Bromus tectorum ), are also changing the magnitude and frequency of disturbance events and vegetational communities over vast areas. Furthermore, species distributions in the Great Basin are likely to shift in response to impending climate change ( McDonald & Brown 1992;Murphy & Weiss 1992;Fleishman et al 1998).…”