Local‐scale biotic interactions embedded in macroscale climate drivers suggest Eltonian noise hypothesis distribution patterns for an invasive grass

Fraterrigo, Jennifer M.; Wagner, Stéphanie; Warren, Robert J.

doi:10.1111/ele.12352

Cited by 50 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Accordingly, this study is generally compatible with the conclusion that niche divergence is likely not the major driver of clade diversification process in Gynandropaa , while the three clades have seemingly originated through vicariance events27 associated with evolutionary conservatism in their environmental tolerances. It should be noted, however, that the niches fitted here were rather measured at the macro-environmental scale, and one cannot exclude from these results that niche differentiations may have occurred between clades at a more micro-environmental scale484950. In fact, both niche conservatism and niche divergence could be observed following a geographic separation depending on the geographic scale considered, which will also depend on the environment on all sides of the barriers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Niche conservatism in Gynandropaa frogs on the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Broennimann

Guisan

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of ecological niche in lineage diversification has been the subject of long-standing interest of ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Gynandropaa frogs diversified into three independent clades endemic to the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Here, we address the question whether these clades kept the same niche after separation, and what it tells us about possible diversification processes. We applied predictions in geographical (G)-space and tests of niche conservatism in environmental (E)-space. Niche models in G-space indicate separate regions with high suitability for the different clades, with some potential areas of sympatry. While the pair of central and eastern clades displayed the largest niche overlap for most variables, and strict niche equivalency was rejected for all clade-pairs, we found no strong evidence for niche divergence, but rather the signature of niche conservatism compared to null models in E-space. These results suggest a common ancestral ecological niche, and as such give good support to divergence through allopatric speciation, but alternative explanations are also possible. Our findings illustrate how testing for niche conservatism in lineage diversification can provide insights into underlying speciation processes, and how this information may guide further research and conservation practices, as illustrated here for amphibians on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Niche conservatism in Gynandropaa frogs on the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Broennimann

Guisan

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nevertheless, macroscale environmental conditions influence abiotic and biotic processes shaping species' niche spaces and distributions at local scales to different degrees (Fraterrigo et al ., , and references therein). Besides biotic interactions such as competition, numerous studies have shown that microclimate drives the spatial occurrence of species on small spatial scales (Maclean et al ., ; Opedal et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Scale dependence of temperature as an abiotic driver of species' distributions

Schweiger

Beierkuhnlein

2016

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aim Scale dependence of patterns and processes remains one of the major unresolved problems in ecology. The responses of ecosystems to environmental stressors are reported to be strongly scale dependent, but projections of the effects of climate change on species' distributions are still restricted to particular scales and knowledge about scale dependence is lacking. Here we propose that the scale dependence of those species' niche dimensions related to climate change is strongly related to the strength of climatic cross‐scale links. More specifically, we hypothesize that the strong cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions are related to high cross‐scale similarity (low scale dependence) of species' realized temperature niches and, thus, species' spatial distributions. Location This study covers seven orders of magnitude of spatial scale, ranging from local‐scale (below a metre) and regional‐scale (kilometre) investigations in central European wetland ecosystems to continental‐scale (thousands of kilometres) studies of species' distributions. Methods We combined data on the spatial occurrence of species (vegetation records at local and regional scales, digitized distribution maps at the continental scale) with information about the corresponding temperature regime of vascular plant species occurring in environmentally stable wetland ecosystems characterized by strong cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions. Results We observed high cross‐scale similarity of the characteristics of species temperature niches across seven orders of magnitude of spatial scale. However, the importance of temperature as an abiotic driver decreased nonlinearly with decreasing scale, suggesting greater importance of additional (biotic) drivers of species' occurrence at small spatial scales. Main conclusions We report high cross‐scale similarity of realized temperature niches for species inhabiting ecosystems where small‐scale environmental noise is low and cross‐scale links between micro‐ and macroclimatic conditions are strong. By highlighting a strong relationship between abiotic and biotic cross‐scale similarity, our results will help to improve niche‐based species distribution modelling, one of the major assessment tools for determining the ecological effects of climate change.

show abstract

“…There is a natural inclination to interpret SDMs as providing insights about the mechanisms shaping species' distributions (Alvarez‐Martínez, Suárez‐Seoane, Palacín, Sanz, & Alonso, ; Fraterrigo et al., ). Our results suggest that it is difficult to identify the effect of competition on species' distributions using SDMs under some circumstances, or to distinguish the effects of competition from other drivers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although SDMs are used to identify the importance of biotic interactions or other ecological mechanisms (Elith & Leathwick, ; Fraterrigo, Wagner, & Warren, ; le Roux, Lenoir, Pellissier, Wisz, & Luoto, ; Roux, Pellissier, Wisz, & Luoto, ; Sexton et al., ), there are sound statistical reasons to be skeptical of this approach. In particular, abiotic environment often indirectly influences the effects of biotic interactions (Callaway et al., ; Davis, Jenkinson, Lawton, Shorrocks, & Wood, ; Sexton et al., ; Tylianakis, Didham, Bascompte, & Wardle, ) and the resultant correlations among variables (i.e., multicollinearity) can make it difficult to infer how important each variable is for shaping species' distributions (Graham, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of biotic interactions on modeled species' distribution can be masked by environmental gradients

Godsoe

Franklin

Blanchet

2016

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A fundamental goal of ecology is to understand the determinants of species' distributions (i.e., the set of locations where a species is present). Competition among species (i.e., interactions among species that harms each of the species involved) is common in nature and it would be tremendously useful to quantify its effects on species' distributions. An approach to studying the large‐scale effects of competition or other biotic interactions is to fit species' distributions models (SDMs) and assess the effect of competitors on the distribution and abundance of the species of interest. It is often difficult to validate the accuracy of this approach with available data. Here, we simulate virtual species that experience competition. In these simulated datasets, we can unambiguously identify the effects that competition has on a species' distribution. We then fit SDMs to the simulated datasets and test whether we can use the outputs of the SDMs to infer the true effect of competition in each simulated dataset. In our simulations, the abiotic environment influenced the effects of competition. Thus, our SDMs often inferred that the abiotic environment was a strong predictor of species abundance, even when the species' distribution was strongly affected by competition. The severity of this problem depended on whether the competitor excluded the focal species from highly suitable sites or marginally suitable sites. Our results highlight how correlations between biotic interactions and the abiotic environment make it difficult to infer the effects of competition using SDMs.

show abstract

Local‐scale biotic interactions embedded in macroscale climate drivers suggest Eltonian noise hypothesis distribution patterns for an invasive grass

Cited by 50 publications

References 53 publications

Niche conservatism in Gynandropaa frogs on the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Niche conservatism in Gynandropaa frogs on the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Scale dependence of temperature as an abiotic driver of species' distributions

Effects of biotic interactions on modeled species' distribution can be masked by environmental gradients

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About