Recent global changes have decoupled species richness from specialization patterns in North American birds

Abstract

AimTheory suggests that increasing productivity and climate stability toward the tropics can explain the latitudinal richness gradient by favouring specialization. A positive relationship between species richness and specialization should thus emerge as a fundamental biogeographic pattern. However, land use and climate change disproportionally increase the local extirpation risk for specialists, potentially impacting this pattern. Here, we empirically quantify the richness-specialization prediction and test how 50 years of climate and land use change has affected the richness-specialization relationship.LocationUSATime period1966-2015Major taxa studiedBirdsMethodsWe used the North American breeding bird survey to quantify bird community richness and specialization to habitat and climate. We assess i) temporal change in the slope of the richness-specialization relationship, using a Generalized Mixed Model; ii) temporal change in spatial covariation of richness and specialization as driven by local environmental conditions, using Generalized Additive Models; and iii) land use, climate and topographic drivers of the spatio-temporal changes in the relationship, using a multivariate method.ResultsWe found evidence for a positive richness-specialization relationship in bird communities. However, the slope of the relationship declined strongly over time. Richness spatially covaried with specialization following a unimodal pattern. The peak of the unimodal pattern shifted toward less specialized communities over time. These temporal changes were associated with precipitation change, decreasing temperature stability and land use.Main conclusionsRecent climate and land use changes induced two antagonist types of community responses. In human-dominated areas, the decoupling of richness and specialization drove a general biotic homogenization trend. In human-preserved areas under increasing climate harshness, specialization increased while richness decreased in a “specialization” trend. Our results offer new support for specialization as a key driver of macroecological diversity patterns, and show that global changes are erasing this fundamental macroecological pattern.BiosketchAnne Mimet is a postdoctoral researcher interested in the understanding of human impacts on biodiversity through land use and climate changes, at various spatio-temporal scales. She is interested in embracing the complexity of socio-ecological systems, and in the understanding of biodiversity trends in a human-dominated world in the context of the general theories of ecology.

Scale‐dependent effects of niche specialisation: The disconnect between individual and species ranges

“…The positive association between geographical range size and niche breadth has received much attention partly because it was proposed as one of the mechanisms for the most pervasive biodiversity pattern, the latitudinal diversity gradient (Jocque et al, 2010; Stevens, 1989). Tropical species are often expected to have smaller ranges and narrower niches (reviewed in Mimet et al, 2019). However, our analyses showed that this apparent association only applies to habitat but not dietary niche breadth, complementing previous community network analyses that showed reduced rather than increasing animal dietary specialisation on flowering and fruiting plants towards lower latitudes (Schleuning et al, 2012; but see contrasting patterns at the assemblage level in Dalsgaard et al, 2017).…”