Local randomness, vegetation type and dispersal drive bird and mammal's diversity in a tropical South American region

How dispersal, environmental filters, and local extinctions affect species diversity depends on the species requirements for habitat, dispersal limitations, and abundance. Few studies have been able to properly separate these processes and to show how they affect the beta diversity patterns for mult...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecosphere (Washington, D.C) D.C), 2014-09, Vol.5 (9), p.art114-11
Main Authors: Cáceres, N. C, Dambros, C. S, Melo, G. L, Sponchiado, J, Della-Flora, F, Moura, M. O
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biogeography
Birds
Community
Dispersal
dispersal limitation
distance decay
ecological drift
Environmental changes
Environmental effects
Environmental gradient
Environmental requirements
Forests
Mammals
neutral theory
niche theory
Species composition
Species diversity
species richness
Vegetation
vegetation effect
Wetlands
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Summary:How dispersal, environmental filters, and local extinctions affect species diversity depends on the species requirements for habitat, dispersal limitations, and abundance. Few studies have been able to properly separate these processes and to show how they affect the beta diversity patterns for multiple organisms. We investigated how the composition of birds and mammals changed along geographical and environmental gradients in an environmentally complex South American region. Using mantel tests and a null model approach we disentangled the effects of dispersal, environment, and stochastic processes in the species beta diversities. The similarity on species composition was negatively associated with the geographical distance separating areas for both groups. The changes in bird species composition likely resulted from their dispersal limitation over large geographical regions. In contrast, the composition of mammals in a given area was a partially random subset of the regional species pool, to some extent, filtered by the vegetation. Small communities tended to have more variable species composition, whereas dispersal limited birds showed a stronger distance-decay pattern. Neither local randomness nor dispersal limitation prevented species from being filtered by the environment. Other groups are likely to show similar patterns depending on their dispersal abilities, environmental requirements and community size.
ISSN:2150-8925
2150-8925
DOI:10.1890/ES14-00040.1