The proportion of core species in a community varies with spatial scale and environmental heterogeneity
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Author and article information
Abstract
Ecological communities are composed of a combination of core species that maintain local viable populations and transient species that occur infrequently due to dispersal from surrounding regions. Preliminary work indicates that while core and transient species are both commonly observed in community surveys of a wide range of taxonomic groups, their relative prevalence varies substantially from one community to another depending upon the spatial scale at which the community was characterized and its environmental context. We used a geographically extensive dataset of 968 bird community time series to quantitatively describe how the proportion of core species in a community varies with spatial scale and environmental heterogeneity. We found that the proportion of core species in an assemblage increased with spatial scale in a positive decelerating fashion with a concomitant decrease in the proportion of transient species. Variation in the shape of this scaling relationship between sites was related to regional environmental heterogeneity, with lower proportions of core species at a given scale associated with high environmental heterogeneity. This influence of scale and environmental heterogeneity on the proportion of core species may help resolve discrepancies between studies of biotic interactions, resource availability, and mass effects conducted at different scales, because the importance of these and other ecological processes are expected to differ substantially between core and transient species.
Cite this as
2018. The proportion of core species in a community varies with spatial scale and environmental heterogeneity. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27158v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27158v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
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This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Supplemental Information
The variation in parameter estimates for the core area relationship across different core and transient cutoff thresholds
While there was not an appreciable difference between cutoffs, slight differences may indicate the resilience of higher cutoff thresholds against classification errors.
The variation in parameter estimates for the core abundance relationship across different core and transient cutoff thresholds
While there was not an appreciable difference between cutoffs, slight differences may indicate the resilience of higher cutoff thresholds against classification errors.
Additional Information
Competing Interests
Ethan P. White is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.
Author Contributions
Molly F Jenkins conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Ethan P White conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, funding, original project proposal.
Allen H Hurlbert conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft, funding, original project proposal.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
1) core_scale
2) NA
Funding
This work was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation through grant DEB-1354563 to Allen H. Hurlbert and Ethan P. White and by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Data-Driven Discovery Initiative through grant GBMF4563 to Ethan P. White. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
