Assembly Rules: Desert Rodent Communities Are Structured at Scales from Local to Continental

Brown,; Fox,; Kelt,

doi:10.2307/3079152

Cited by 34 publications

(53 citation statements)

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“…Significant nested patterns have been detected in rodent (Patterson and Brown 1991, Kelt et al 1999, Abu Baker and Patterson 2011 and shrew (Patterson 1990) assemblages. By contrast, non-random co-occurrence patterns consistent with competition theory have been found in rodent assemblages in American deserts and in Egypt (Kelt et al 1999, Brown et al 2000, Abu Baker and Patterson 2011 as well as in shrew assemblages in Australian and North American temperate forests Kirkland 1992, McCay et al 2004). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Ecological correlates of small mammal assemblage structure at different spatial scales in the savannah biome of South Africa

Delcros

Taylor²,

Schoeman

2014

Mammalia

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Abstract:We sampled the seasonal diversity of rodents and shrews in two neighboring game reserves in the savannah biome and assessed the influence of competition and abiotic processes on species composition patterns at habitat and reserve scales. We used null models and multivariate analyses to test whether the observed patterns differed significantly from those expected by chance. Species richness estimators indicated that rodent and shrew inventories were relatively complete. Rarefaction curves showed that small mammal species richness was higher at the Mkhuze Game Reserve than the Kube Yini Game Reserve, though it was highest in the Acacia woodlands. Rodent diversity was highest during winter. Rodent and shrew species composition was significantly correlated with grass height, tree density, and ground cover. Furthermore, rodent and shrew assemblages were nested at the reserve scale. Only nestedness at the broadest scale (both reserves, both seasons combined) was significantly correlated with landscape and microhabitat variables. Conversely, there was little evidence that competition influenced rodent and shrew species composition. Results showed that species composition patterns of small mammals in the savannah biome are related to abiotic processes operating at local and regional scales, suggesting that microhabitat characteristics and regional processes like immigration and extinction drive assemblage structure.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Ecological correlates of small mammal assemblage structure at different spatial scales in the savannah biome of South Africa

Delcros

Taylor²,

Schoeman

2014

Mammalia

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“…(b) Local rock-reef cichlid communities are randomly distributed Community analyses have traditionally focused on the regional scale [1,3,11], neglecting intermediate scales within locales, perhaps because the data have not been available. Yet, this scale represents an important one, linking (or not) processes that occur at the level of individual territories to patterns apparent across regions [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies have linked expectations from reduced co-occurrence patterns to empirical verification of species interactions (competition; [8,9]). Studies of community structure have assessed a variety of assemblages including salamanders [9], ants [8,10], desert rodents [11], beetles [12], marine reef fishes [13] and birds [14]. Despite mixed individual results, a meta-analysis of 96 datasets revealed that non-random community structure (lower species cooccurrence) is more common in natural communities than expected [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mbuna dominate rocky habitats in densely packed communities consisting of dozens of species and hundreds of individuals [26]; these rock-fishes exploit all available niches, thus producing local communities built from a single lineage of closely related species. This condition is unique among assemblages examined for community structure [1,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We employed this approach at multiple spatial scales to investigate how structure emerges as geographical resolution increases-a topic that remains unsettled in the literature [8,11,13,46]. We made two central predictions: first, because this is a system in which local species interactions are thought to be pervasive and partly responsible for evolutionary diversification, we expected to detect the signature of community structure at the finest scale (depth within sites).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The macroecology of rapid evolutionary radiation

Parnell

Streelman

2011

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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A long-standing debate in ecology addresses whether community composition is the result of stochastic factors or assembly rules. Non-random, over-dispersed patterns of species co-occurrence have commonly been attributed to competition-a particularly important force in adaptive radiation. We thus examined the macroecology of the recently radiated cichlid rock-fish assemblage in Lake Malawi, Africa at a spectrum of increasingly fine spatial scales (entire lake to depth within rock-reef sites). Along this range of spatial scales, we observed a signal of community structure (decreased co-occurrence of species) at the largest and smallest scales, but not in between. Evidence suggests that the lakewide signature of structure is driven by extreme endemism and micro-allopatric speciation, while patterns of reduced co-occurrence with depth are indicative of species interactions. We identified a 'core' set of rock-reef species, found in combination throughout the lake, whose depth profiles exhibited replicated positive and negative correlation. Our results provide insight into how ecological communities may be structured differently at distinct spatial scales, re-emphasize the importance of local species interactions in community assembly, and further elucidate the processes shaping speciation in this model adaptive radiation.

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Resource partitioning confirmed by isotopic signatures allows small mammals to share seasonally flooded meadows

Balčiauskas

Skipitytė

Balčiauskienė

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Meadows in river deltas are characterized by a high diversity and abundance of small mammals. However, neither their spatial arrangement nor differences in their use of microhabitat can necessarily explain the dense co‐occurrence of sympatric species. We investigated how several small mammal species share a seasonally flooded meadow of limited size, testing predictions (P1) that herbivore, granivore, insectivore, and omnivore species are separated in time (dominant in different years), (P2) that sympatric species undergo isotopic partitioning, and (P3) that there are intraspecific differences in diet. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures in the hair of seven synantropic shrew, vole, and mice species were used as a proxy for their diet. We found that the three most abundant species in eight of the nine years were from different diet groups. However, based on the number of species in the functional groups, the state of small mammal community was considered unfavored in five out of the nine investigation years. In years with the greatest dominance of Apodemus agrarius , the small mammal community was characterized by decreased diversity and Micromys minutus was either in low abundance or absent. In 2014 and 2016, years of low abundance or absence of M. oeconomus , M. agrestis, and M. glareolus were both recorded in high numbers. Differences in the isotopic signatures of the three most abundant small mammal species in the community were clearly expressed and core areas in the isotopic space were separated, showing their dependence on different dietary resources. Intraspecific dietary separation between young and adult animals was observed only in M. oeconomus . Thus, the high species diversity of small mammals and the formation of their community in this investigated flooded meadow are maintained by isotopic partitioning (segregation in dietary space) and by changes in their number over time (shifting dominance).

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Assembly Rules: Desert Rodent Communities Are Structured at Scales from Local to Continental

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Ecological correlates of small mammal assemblage structure at different spatial scales in the savannah biome of South Africa

Ecological correlates of small mammal assemblage structure at different spatial scales in the savannah biome of South Africa

The macroecology of rapid evolutionary radiation

Resource partitioning confirmed by isotopic signatures allows small mammals to share seasonally flooded meadows

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