Morlon Hélène, Chuyong George, Condit Richard, Hubbell Stephen, Kenfack David, Thomas Duncan, Valencia Renato, Green Jessica L
School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2008 Sep;11(9):904-17. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01202.x. Epub 2008 May 20.
Species spatial turnover, or beta-diversity, induces a decay of community similarity with geographic distance known as the distance-decay relationship. Although this relationship is central to biodiversity and biogeography, its theoretical underpinnings remain poorly understood. Here, we develop a general framework to describe how the distance-decay relationship is influenced by population aggregation and the landscape-scale species-abundance distribution. We utilize this general framework and data from three tropical forests to show that rare species have a weak influence on distance-decay curves, and that overall similarity and rates of decay are primarily influenced by species abundances and population aggregation respectively. We illustrate the utility of the framework by deriving an exact analytical expression of the distance-decay relationship when population aggregation is characterized by the Poisson Cluster Process. Our study provides a foundation for understanding the distance-decay relationship, and for predicting and testing patterns of beta-diversity under competing theories in ecology.
物种空间周转率，即β多样性，会导致群落相似性随地理距离衰减，这被称为距离衰减关系。尽管这种关系在生物多样性和生物地理学中至关重要，但其理论基础仍知之甚少。在此，我们构建了一个通用框架，以描述距离衰减关系是如何受到种群聚集和景观尺度物种丰度分布影响的。我们利用这个通用框架和来自三个热带森林的数据表明，稀有物种对距离衰减曲线影响较弱，而总体相似性和衰减速率分别主要受物种丰度和种群聚集的影响。当种群聚集由泊松聚类过程表征时，我们通过推导距离衰减关系的精确解析表达式来说明该框架的实用性。我们的研究为理解距离衰减关系以及在生态学中相互竞争的理论下预测和检验β多样性模式提供了基础。
