Dataset Information

The latitudinal diversity gradient in South American mammals revisited using a regional analysis approach: The importance of climate at extra-tropical latitudes and history towards the tropics.

ABSTRACT: The latitudinal diversity gradient has been considered a consequence of a shift in the impact of abiotic and biotic factors that limit species distributions from the poles to the equator, thus influencing species richness variation. It has also been considered the outcome of evolutionary processes that vary over geographical space. We used six South American mammal groups to test the association of environmental and evolutionary factors and the ecological structuring of mammal assemblages with spatial variation in taxonomic richness (TR), at a spatial resolution of 110 km x 110 km, at tropical and extra-tropical latitudes. Based on attributes that represent what mammal species do in ecosystems, we estimated ecological diversity (ED) as a mean pairwise ecological distance between all co-occurring taxa. The mean pairwise phylogenetic distance between all co-occurring taxa (AvPD) was used as an estimation of phylogenetic diversity. Geographically Weighted Regression analyses performed separately for each mammal group identified tropical and extra-tropical high R2 areas where environmental and evolutionary factors strongly accounted for richness variation. Temperature was the most important predictor of TR in high R2 areas outside the tropics, as was AvPD within the tropics. The proportion of TR variation accounted for by environment (either independently or combined with AvPD) was higher in tropical areas of high richness and low ecological diversity than in tropical areas of high richness and high ecological diversity. In conclusion, we confirmed a shift in the impact of environmental factors, mainly temperature, that best account for mammal richness variation in extra-tropical regions, whereas phylogenetic diversity best accounts for richness variation within the tropics. Environment in combination with evolutionary history explained the coexistence of a high number of ecologically similar species within the tropics. Consideration of the influence of contemporary environmental variables and evolutionary history is crucial to understanding of the latitudinal diversity gradient.

SUBMITTER: Fergnani PN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5584750 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The latitudinal diversity gradient in South American mammals revisited using a regional analysis approach: The importance of climate at extra-tropical latitudes and history towards the tropics.

Fergnani Paula Nilda PN Ruggiero Adriana A

PloS one 20170905 9

The latitudinal diversity gradient has been considered a consequence of a shift in the impact of abiotic and biotic factors that limit species distributions from the poles to the equator, thus influencing species richness variation. It has also been considered the outcome of evolutionary processes that vary over geographical space. We used six South American mammal groups to test the association of environmental and evolutionary factors and the ecological structuring of mammal assemblages with s ...[more]

PMID: 28873434

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Project description:General principles that shape community structure can be described based on a functional trait approach grounded on predictive models; increased attention has been paid to factors accounting for the functional diversity of species assemblages and its association with species richness along environmental gradients. We analyze here the interaction between leaf-litter ant species richness, the local communities' morphological structure and fundamental niche within the context of a northeast-southeast latitudinal gradient in one of the world's most species-rich ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, representing 2,700 km of tropical rainforest along almost 20° of latitude in eastern Brazil. Our results are consistent with an ecosystem-wide pattern in communities' structure, with relatively high species turnover but functionally analogous leaf-litter ant communities' organization. Our results suggest directional shifts in the morphological space along the environmental gradient from overdispersed to aggregated (from North to South), suggesting that primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity (altitude, temperature and precipitation in the case) determine the distribution of traits and regulate the assembly rules, shaping local leaf-litter ant communities. Contrary to the expected and most common pattern along latitudinal gradients, the Atlantic Forest leaf litter ant communities show an inverse pattern in richness, that is, richer communities in higher than in lower latitudes. The morphological specialization of communities showed more morphologically distinct communities at low latitudes and species redundancy at high latitudes. We claim that an inverse latitudinal gradient in primary productivity and environmental heterogeneity across the Atlantic forest may affect morphological diversity and species richness, enhancing species coexistence mechanisms, and producing thus the observed patterns. We suggest that a functional framework based on flexible enough traits should be pursued to allow comparisons at local, regional and global levels.

Dataset Information

The latitudinal diversity gradient in South American mammals revisited using a regional analysis approach: The importance of climate at extra-tropical latitudes and history towards the tropics.

Publications

The latitudinal diversity gradient in South American mammals revisited using a regional analysis approach: The importance of climate at extra-tropical latitudes and history towards the tropics.

Similar Datasets

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