Towards a unified descriptive theory for spatial ecology: predicting biodiversity patterns across spatial scales

Abstract

Summary 1.A key challenge for both ecological researchers and biodiversity managers is the measurement and prediction of species richness across spatial scales. Typically, biodiversity is assessed at fine scales (e.g. in quadrats or transects) for practical reasons, but often we are interested in coarser-scale (field, regional, global) diversity issues. Moreover, the pressures affecting biodiversity patterns are often scale specific, making multiscale assessment a crucial methodological priority. As species richness is not additive, it is difficult to translate from the scale of measurement to the scale(s) of interest. A number of methods have been proposed to tackle this problem, but most are too model specific or too rigid to allow general application. Here, we present a general framework (and a specific implementation of it) that allows such scale translations to be performed. 2. Building on the intrinsic relationships among patterns of species richness, abundance and spatial turnover, we introduce a framework that links and predicts the profile of the species-area relationship and the speciesabundance distributions across scales when a limited number of fine-scale scattered samples are available. Using the correlation in species' abundances between pairs of samples as a function of the distance between them, we are able to link the effects of aggregation, similarity decay, species richness and species abundances across scales. 3. Our approach allows one to draw inferences about biodiversity scaling under very general assumptions pertaining to the nature of interactions, the geographical distributions of individuals and ecological processes. 4. We demonstrate the accuracy of our predictions using data from two well-studied forest stands and also demonstrate the potential value of such methods by examining the effects of management on farmland insects across scales. The framework has important applications to biodiversity research and conservation practice.

How Should Beta-Diversity Inform Biodiversity Conservation?

“…Conversely, when land use intensification leads to high abundances and local richness of a particular group (e.g. hoverflies in Europe [44], bees and wasps in Ecuador [52]), beta-diversity is likely to decline. Although there are some clear generalities, many changes appear idiosyncratic.…”

“…This can be done for specific idealised 520 models of community structure [98], but until recently no general formulation was available. Azaele et al [44] use a general pair correlation function (PCF) to empirically fit the spatial turnover of species as a function of distance ( Figure I). The technique has so far been tested in a limited number of systems, but represents an important general approach for multi-scale biodiversity monitoring.…”

“…A novel approach offers substantial promise [44] (Box 3), but has yet to be repeatedly tested and improved.…”

“…Null model approaches, which are widely used to remove the neutral component of beta-diversity, tend obscure the scaling relationship between local and regional diversity [43](Box 2). However, new techniques using the distance-decay of pairwise similarity provide a potentially powerful tool for extrapolating small studies to larger landscapes [44](Box 3). 100 Even when the scaling factor is measured appropriately, the conservation significance of a change in beta-diversity is not straightforward.…”

Towards global interoperability for supporting biodiversity research on essential biodiversity variables (EBVs)

“…This includes semantic approaches and ontologies for data integration and interoperability, methods for data presentation and data visualisation, scientific workflow systems for calculation, analysis and modelling and other ecoinformatics approaches such as up-scaling and down-scaling of biodiversity information and methods for modelling data collection processes (e.g. Azaele et al 2015;De Giovanni et al Forthcoming;Hobern et al 2013;Isaac et al 2014;Jones et al 2006;Kunin 1998;Mathew et al 2014;Schmeller et al 2015). Third, biodiversity information management has to be integrated globally so that research infrastructures are interlinked and interoperable in both technical and legal terms.…”