Species are not most abundant in the centre of their geographic range or climatic niche

The pervasive idea that species should be most abundant in the centre of their geographic range or centre of their climatic niche is a key assumption in many existing ecological hypotheses and has been declared a general macroecological rule. However, empirical support for decreasing population abun...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2017-12, Vol.20 (12), p.1526-1533
Main Authors: Dallas, Tad, Decker, Robin R., Hastings, Alan, Anderson, Marti
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Abundant‐centre hypothesis
Birds
climatic niche
eBird
Empirical analysis
Forest Inventory and Analysis
geographic range
macroecology
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Species
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Summary:The pervasive idea that species should be most abundant in the centre of their geographic range or centre of their climatic niche is a key assumption in many existing ecological hypotheses and has been declared a general macroecological rule. However, empirical support for decreasing population abundance with increasing distance from geographic range or climatic niche centre (distance–abundance relationships) remains fairly weak. We examine over 1400 bird, mammal, fish and tree species to provide a thorough test of distance–abundance relationships, and their associations with species traits and phylogenetic relationships. We failed to detect consistent distance–abundance relationships, and found no association between distance–abundance slope and species traits or phylogenetic relatedness. Together, our analyses suggest that distance–abundance relationships may be rare, difficult to detect, or are an oversimplification of the complex biogeographical forces that determine species spatial abundance patterns.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12860