Varying support for abundance‐centre and congeneric‐competition hypotheses along elevational transects of mammals

Wen, Zhixin; Ge, Deyan; Feijó, Anderson; Du, Yuanbao; Cheng, Jilong; Sun, Jian; Wang, Yanqun; Xia, Lin; Yang, Qisen

doi:10.1111/jbi.14025

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…First, species may be distributed unevenly across their geographical range, and abundance tends to be highest near the range centre (the ‘abundant centre’ hypothesis; Brown, 1995). However, the ‘abundant centre’ hypothesis may not apply to the elevational range, as recent studies in mountains found limited support (bird: Freeman & Beehler, 2018; mammal: Wen et al., 2021). Second, species range size in a specific region (or at a single site) and global range size is not necessarily correlated (McCain, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive abundance–elevational range size relationship weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems

Scheffers

Pan

et al. 2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Describing the patterns and revealing the underlying mechanisms responsible for variations in community structure remain a central focus in ecology. However, important gaps remain, including our understanding of species abundance. Most studies on abundance‐based relationships are from either temperate ecosystems or tropical ecosystems, and few have explicitly tested abundance‐based relationships across a temperate to tropical ecotone. Here, we use a comprehensive dataset of breeding birds across elevation spanning a temperate to subtropical gradient in the Himalayas–Hengduan Mountains of China to examine the relationship between species abundance and (a) elevational range size, (b) body size, (c) elevational range centre and (d) endemicity. We tested a priori predictions for abundance–elevational range size relationship, abundance–body size relationship and abundance–elevational range centre relationship, and explored how these relationships change along this temperate to subtropical mountain ecosystem. We found that species abundance was significantly positively correlated with elevational range size across the study sites, demonstrating the key importance of elevational range size towards species abundance. Body size and elevational range centre are weakly correlated with abundance. A novel finding of our study is that the abundance–elevational range size relationship gradually weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems, adding to a growing body of evidence suggesting that abundance–elevational range size tracks a temperate to tropical ecotone. Our study demonstrates that abundance range–size relationship can transition across ecotones where faunas of different evolutionary origins converge. Furthermore, measuring abundance relationships across different environmental variables at the same spatial scale with comparable biogeography is a key strategy that can reveal the underlying mechanisms behind abundance patterns.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive abundance–elevational range size relationship weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems

Scheffers

Pan

et al. 2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…The hard elevational limit is likely to distort abundance profiles by compressing the upper half-range width of the high elevation species, and putting extra pressure on the lower half-range. If this compression cascades downwards through interspecies and intraspecies competition we should expect to see the observed relationship between asymmetry and elevation (Jankowski et al, 2010; Stanton-Geddes et al, 2012; Huntsman & Petty, 2014; Péron & Altwegg, 2015; Wen et al, 2020),. Our highest sampling transects are less than 2 km from the highest ridge and therefore may be close enough to feel the effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Abundant Centre Hypothesis (ACH), that the abundance peak of a species coincides with the centre of its distribution , is the most commonly tested macro-ecological pattern of the environment-abundance paradigm (Brown, 1984; Sagarin & Gaines, 2002a; Murphy et al, 2006; Rivadeneira et al, 2010; Fenberg & Rivadeneira, 2011; Baldanzi et al, 2013; Freeman, 2017; Pironon et al, 2017; Burner et al, 2019; Wen et al, 2020). Niche modeling went further to determine correlations between observed abundance and (a large number of) environmental variables (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing a theoretical framework for the environment-species abundance paradigm: a new approach to the Abundant Centre Hypothesis

Maitra

Pandit

Mungee

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The linkage between environment, a species' fitness and its abundance is central to the theory of evolution. So far, all studies of this linkage have been heuristic and empirical due to an inability to determine fitness either experimentally (independent of abundance) or theoretically (from species-environment interaction). One category of such studies involves the Abundant Centre Hypothesis which posits that a species' abundance rises to a maximum at the centre of its range. We argue that the confusing mix of results from ACH studies arises from ignoring the central premise that the abundance distribution cannot be independent of the environment. First, we employed a theoretical framework to identify an environmental context (an elevational transect; 200-2800 m in the eastern Himalayas) likely to favour ACH. We then improved upon some previously identified conceptual and methodological shortcomings of ACH studies. Using systematically collected bird data (245 species; 15867 records) from that transect we found that the community average abundance profile is symmetric, as expected by ACH. Notwithstanding which, the abundance profiles of individual species showed a small degree of asymmetry which was correlated with elevation. This elevational dependence may be due to the hard elevational limits at the lower and upper ends of the mountain, as expected from theoretical considerations. We also showed that the average abundance profile shape is close to gaussian, while ruling out uniform and inverted-quadratic shapes. This work demonstrates that selecting a particular category of environmental contexts can help in integrating theoretical tools into a field dominated by empirical studies. Such a union should spur the development of more detailed and testable theoretical models for better insights in an important field.

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“…(2020) reported differences in results when testing a data set for small mammals at local and regional scales. The possible explanations for this difference are likely to be topographic variation, climate and interspecific interaction within the study areas (Wen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Their analysis showed that variables such as dispersal distance, geographic coverage and environmental coverage of the data appear to be important in explaining the observed variation between different species native to Africa, Europe and Asia. Most recently, although the relative abundance of a small mammal in Central and Southwest China was shown to exhibit a unimodal symmetric pattern of distribution around the centre of the species' distribution, this model appeared only once among the twelve studied elevational gradients for all species (Wen et al, 2020). Interestingly, Wen et al…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Does marine geospatial/environmental variation affect genetic variation? A meta-analysis

Cárcamo¹

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<p>Genetic information is important to inform management and conservation. However, few studies have tested the relationship between genetic variation and geospatial/environmental variation across marine species. Here, I test two genetics-based ideas in evolutionary theory using data from 55 New Zealand coastal marine taxa. The Core-Periphery Hypothesis (CPH) states that populations at the centre of a species’ distribution exhibit greater genetic variability than populations at the periphery (the ‘normal’ model). Variants of this model include the ‘ramped north’ (greatest variation in the north), the ‘ramped south’ (greatest variation in the south), and the ‘abundant edge’ (greatest variation at the distributional edges, least variation at the centre). The Seascape Genetics Test (SGT) null hypothesis predicts no association between genetic variation and environmental variation. I conducted a meta-analysis of published/unpublished material on population genetic connectivity and diversity and marine environmental data to test both hypotheses. To assess the CPH, genetic data were fitted to four models (Normal, Ramped North, Ramped South, Abundant Edge). I also conducted a descriptive analysis between the genetic outcomes of the CPH and abundance records for a subset of species. The SGT involved GLM analyses using eleven geospatial/environmental variables and species-specific FST-ΦST (genetic distance) estimates plus a smaller subset of genetic diversity data. The CPH results showed that 55 of 249 tests (evaluating on average 2.9 ± 1.3 genetic indices in each of the 84 studies) fitted at least one of the four models: Ramped North (10%), Ramped South (8%), Normal (2%) and Abundant Edge (2.4%). Species-specific abundance records followed the same patterns detected by the CPH. These results indicate that edge populations (Ramped North, Ramped South, Abundant Edge) exhibit greater genetic variability than central populations amongst marine taxa from New Zealand, but that most taxa do not conform to any model (~78% of all tests were not statistically significant). For the seascape genetics multi-species analysis (comprising 498 individual tests), the FST-ΦST estimates (genetic distance estimates between pairs of populations) were mostly affected by four factors related to sea surface temperature. For genetic diversity indices the most significant predictors were latitude and longitude. Whilst different factors (e.g., physical oceanography, food availability, life-history traits and harvesting), either acting alone or acting synergistically, are likely to be important in explaining patterns of genetic diversity in New Zealand’s marine coastal species, my results indicate that variables including SST and to a lesser extent the geospatial variables (latitude and longitude) explain much of the variation in the genetic indices tested here.</p>

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Varying support for abundance‐centre and congeneric‐competition hypotheses along elevational transects of mammals

Cited by 4 publications

References 52 publications

Positive abundance–elevational range size relationship weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems

Positive abundance–elevational range size relationship weakened from temperate to subtropical ecosystems

Testing a theoretical framework for the environment-species abundance paradigm: a new approach to the Abundant Centre Hypothesis

Does marine geospatial/environmental variation affect genetic variation? A meta-analysis

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