Thresholds and the species–area relationship: a set of functions for fitting, evaluating and plotting a range of commonly used piecewise models in R

Matthews, Thomas J.; Rigal, François

doi:10.21425/f5fbg49404

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In a separate analysis, threshold models were fitted to the insular and mainland subsets to identify any potential points of inflection in their ISARs. We fitted two piecewise models (the continuous and left‐horizontal one‐threshold models) using new functionality in the “sars” R package (Matthews & Rigal, 2021). Both models have two segments.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The species–area relationship in ant ecology

Ohyama

Holt

Matthews

et al. 2021

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim:The positive relationship between species richness and area-the species-area relationship (SAR)-is a key principle in ecology. Previous studies show large variation in the SAR across taxa collectively indicating the necessity of a taxon-focused approach to accurately evaluate biodiversity scaling patterns. Ants are ideal for this given their global distribution and role in ecosystem functioning. Using data from insular ant communities, this study quantified and investigated various attributes of ant SARs and reviewed the SAR literature for ant faunas, world-wide, to identify specific areas for improvement.Location: Islands around the world.Taxon: Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Methods:We aggregated data on species richness and island characteristics from previous studies on ant SARs to evaluate effects of climate, biogeographic realm, and latitude on slope values from these studies. A multimodel inference approach was used to determine the form of the different SARs, and whether there were any differences between mainland and insular SARs. We also assessed differences between mainland and insular SAR slopes and intercepts. To seek a general slope coefficient for ants, we used a mixed-effect model. Finally, we tested for potential thresholds in the global insular SAR using piecewise regression models.Results: There was a negative relationship between SAR slopes and precipitation in both mainland and insular SARs, while SAR slopes and intercept values were higher in mainland compared to insular systems. Strong evidence of thresholds emerged in the global insular SAR. Finally, a general slope of 0.16 was observed for insular systems, which is lower than found in previous studies. Main Conclusions:A taxon-focused approach proves to showcase unexpected patterns in the SAR. Ant diversity increases faster across area in mainland areas compared to true islands. The influences of climate and biogeographic realms on the ant SAR warrant deeper study. Our review highlights knowledge gaps in the ant SAR that also extend to other taxa, such as the effects of nonnative species on the SAR.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The species–area relationship in ant ecology

Ohyama

Holt

Matthews

et al. 2021

Journal of Biogeography

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“…Thresholds in the ISAR have been found for some habitat island datasets (e.g., Matthews et al 2014c;Wang et al 2018); however, the identification of thresholds, for example, by using piecewise regression models, is sensitive to the use of log-transformation, which is common in ISAR studies (Matthews et al 2014c). Recent work has proposed a number of additional threshold ISAR models (e.g., with two thresholds; Gao et al 2019), and open-source software is now available for fitting a range of threshold models to ISAR data (Matthews and Rigal 2021). Future tests of these models using additional habitat island datasets will likely be revealing.…”

Section: Diversity-area Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On The Biogeography of Habitat Islands: The Importance of Matrix Effects, Noncore Species, and Source-Sink Dynamics

Matthews¹

2021

The Quarterly Review of Biology

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Habitat islands can be defined as distinct patches of habitat surrounded by less contrasting matrix types. In contrast to true island biogeography (traditionally the study of islands surrounded by water), there have been less efforts to synthesize the myriad habitat island biogeography studies that have been published, particularly syntheses that cover the full range of habitat island types. By building on previous work, I aim to provide a review of habitat island biogeography in order to provide a blueprint for future research on habitat islands, including both naturally and anthropogenically fragmented systems. The review is organized into three main parts. First, the differences between habitat and true islands are summarized. Second, the main theoretical frameworks currently used to analyze habitat island systems are reviewed. Third, the findings of habitat island studies focused on various biological patterns are synthesized. Drawing on this synthesis, I put forward two main points regarding improving our understanding of habitat island biogeography: first, increasing the integration of matrix properties (including matrix variation across space and time) into habitat island biogeographic models and, second, testing for, and understanding the implications of, the potential prevalence of mass effects and source-sink dynamics in habitat island systems.

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“…This implies that the probability of extinction of island populations is inversely related to the size of the island. With the aim to identify which biogeographical hypothesis is supported by our data, we first tested SAR using several functions [44,45] in order to detect possible deviations from the best-known Power function (S = c A z [7]). For this purpose, we used the sars package [44] in R 4.0.3 [46].…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Island Biogeography to Conservation: A Multi-Taxon and Multi-Taxonomic Rank Approach in the Tuscan Archipelago

Ruzzier

Forbicioni²,

Gentili

et al. 2021

Land

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Investigating the drivers that support species richness (S) in insular contexts can give insights for the conservation of insular biodiversity. Our aim was to decouple the effect of drivers (island area, distance from mainland and habitat diversity) accounted in three hypotheses or a combination of them in explaining S in seven islands of the Tuscan Archipelago: Area (species–area relationship, SAR), area and distance from mainland (equilibrium hypothesis, EQH) and habitat (habitat diversity hypothesis, HDH). We used published and original datasets to assess S (except aliens) for 42 taxa (14 animal and 28 plant taxa) in each island, and we used S as the dependent variable and the drivers as covariates in regression models. In 31 taxa, the data supported one of the tested hypotheses or a combination of them, and the most commonly supported hypotheses were SAR (12 taxa) and EQH (10 taxa). The effect of the area was also evident in SAR + HDH (five taxa) and EQH + HDH (one taxon), making it the prevailing driver in explaining S. Since distances are relatively short, and three out of four islands are land-bridge islands, the effect of distance was significant for 12 taxa. The effects of habitat diversity were evident for just nine taxa. The multi-taxon approach allowed us to understand the differential effect of drivers among taxa in influencing S in a single archipelago. Moreover, the multi-taxonomic rank approach highlighted how the information contained within higher taxonomic ranks (e.g., Division) can be substantially different from that derived from lower ranks (e.g., Family). These insights are of particular importance from a conservation perspective of the archipelago’s biodiversity, and this approach can be transferred to mainland fragmented systems.

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Thresholds and the species–area relationship: a set of functions for fitting, evaluating and plotting a range of commonly used piecewise models in R

Cited by 5 publications

References 24 publications

The species–area relationship in ant ecology

The species–area relationship in ant ecology

On The Biogeography of Habitat Islands: The Importance of Matrix Effects, Noncore Species, and Source-Sink Dynamics

From Island Biogeography to Conservation: A Multi-Taxon and Multi-Taxonomic Rank Approach in the Tuscan Archipelago

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