The ‘Hutchinsonian niche’ as an assemblage of demographic niches: implications for species geographic ranges
The ‘Hutchinsonian niche’ as an assemblage of demographic niches: implications for species geographic ranges
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DOI：
10.1111/ecog.03414
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发表时间：
2018-07
期刊：
影响因子：
5.9
通讯作者：
S. Pironon;J. Villellas;W. Thuiller;V. Eckhart;M. Geber;D. A. Moeller;M. B. García
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Pironon;J. Villellas;W. Thuiller;V. Eckhart;M. Geber;D. A. Moeller;M. B. García
Hutchinson(1957)将生态位定义为一个由环境条件塑造的超体积，在该环境条件下，一个物种可以“无限期地存在”。虽然几位作者进一步讨论了采用生态位理论的人口统计学观点的必要性，但很少有人研究物种生命周期不同组成部分(即生命速率)的环境要求，以检查其内部生态位结构。因此，目前尚不清楚物种的人口结构、生态位和分布是如何相互关联的。利用两种经过充分研究的短命植物(车前草、克氏车前草)的综合人口统计数据，我们发现物种的人口生态位的排列揭示了它们的环境生态位和地理分布的关键特征。在车前，通过对环境梯度的不同反应(人口补偿)，与某些个体生命比率的地理趋势相反，稳定了整个范围内的人口增长。在Clarkia Xantiana，缺乏人口补偿是人口增长梯度的基础，这可能会转化为地理范围的方向性转移。总体而言，我们的结果强调，不能假设发生和表现生态位是相同的，研究它们的关系对于更好地理解物种的生态位是必不可少的。最后，我们论证了在研究生态系统和预测物种地理范围的动态时，考虑物种人口生态位组合的价值。这篇文章受版权保护。版权所有。
Hutchinson (1957) defined the ecological niche as a hypervolume shaped by the environmental conditions under which a species can “exist indefinitely”. Although several authors further discussed the need to adopt a demographic perspective of the ecological niche theory, very few have investigated the environmental requirements of different components of species’ life cycles (i.e. vital rates) in order to examine their internal niche structures. It therefore remains unclear how species’ demography, niches and distributions are interrelated. Using comprehensive demographic data for two well-studied, short-lived plants (Plantago coronopus, Clarkia xantiana), we show that the arrangement of species’ demographic niches reveals key features of their environmental niches and geographic distributions. In Plantago coronopus, opposing geographic trends in some individual vital rates, through different responses to environmental gradients (demographic compensation), stabilize population growth across the range. In Clarkia xantiana, a lack of demographic compensation underlies a gradient in population growth, which could translate in a directional geographic range shift. Overall, our results highlight that occurrence and performance niches cannot be assumed to be the same, and that studying their relationship is essential for a better understanding of species’ ecological niches. Finally, we argue for the value of considering the assemblage of species’ demographic niches when studying ecological systems, and predicting the dynamics of species geographical ranges. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.