Community assembly rules affect the diversity of expanding communities

Ecology and Evolution

Zechen Peng¹ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

关键词: climate change;    community similarity;    neutral model;    range expansion;    species richness;    trade‐off;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.1251

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Despite centuries of interest in species range limits, few studies have taken a whole community into consideration. Actually, multiple species may simultaneously respond to environmental changes, for example, global warming, leading a series of dynamical communities toward the advancing front. We investigated multiple species range expansions through the analysis of a two-species dispersion model and simulations of multiple species assemblages regulated by neutral and fecundity–survival trade-offs (FSTs), respectively, and found that species assemblages regulated by different mechanisms would initiate different expanding patterns in geographic ranges in response to environmental changes. The neutral model generally predicts a higher biodiversity near the core of an expanding range, and a lower community similarity compared with a FST model. Without considering the evolution of life history traits, an assortment of the reproduction ability happens at the advancing front under FSTs at the expense of a higher death rate or lower competitive ability. These results emphasize the importance of community assembly rules to the biodiversity maintenance of range expanding communities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.