Complex relationships between species niches and environmental heterogeneity affect species co-occurrence patterns in modelled and real communities
Complex relationships between species niches and environmental heterogeneity affect species co-occurrence patterns in modelled and real communities
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2015.0927
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发表时间：
2015-08-22
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Bar-Massada, Avi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bar-Massada, Avi
物种共生分析通常被用来评估种间相互作用如何决定群落的聚集。然而，生态位差异和环境异质性也可能产生非随机的共生现象。物种共生格局、环境异质性和物种生态位之间的关系由于它们之间复杂的相互作用而没有得到充分的理解。为了分析这些模式和过程之间的关系，我开发了合成的群落模型，并分析了整个美国毗邻的树种的大型数据集。在模拟群落和真实群落中，生态位重叠和环境异质性对物种共生格局有显著和不同的影响。生态位宽度反过来影响这两个变量对物种共生格局的影响大小。生态位宽度对共生与生态位重叠关系的影响在模拟群落与真实群落之间显著一致，而对共生与环境异质性关系的影响在真实数据与模型数据之间基本一致。这一分析结果突出了物种生态位重叠、生态位宽度和环境异质性对物种共生格局的复杂和交互影响。因此，从共生模式推断生态过程而不考虑物种和环境的这些基本特征可能会导致有偏见的结论。
Species co-occurrence analysis is commonly used to assess how interspecific interactions dictate community assembly. Non-random co-occurrences, however, may also emerge from niche differences as well as environmental heterogeneity. The relationships between species co-occurrence patterns, environmental heterogeneity and species niches are not fully understood, due to complex interactions among them. To analyse the relationships among these patterns and processes, I developed synthetic community models and analysed a large dataset of tree species across the conterminous United States. Niche overlap and environmental heterogeneity had significant and contrasting effects on species co-occurrence patterns, in both modelled and real communities. Niche breadth, in turn, affected the effect sizes of both variables on species co-occurrence patterns. The effect of niche breadth on the relationship between co-occurrence and niche overlap was markedly consistent between modelled and real communities, while its effect on the relationship between co-occurrence and environmental heterogeneity was mostly consistent between real and modelled data. The results of this analysis highlight the complex and interactive effects of species niche overlap, niche breadth and environmental heterogeneity on species co-occurrence patterns. Therefore, inferring ecological processes from co-occurrence patterns without accounting for these fundamental characteristics of species and environments may lead to biased conclusions.