Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University in Prague and Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Jilskà 1, Prague 1, Czechia, Czech Republic.
Math Biosci. 2010 Feb;223(2):151-9. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2009.12.001. Epub 2009 Dec 5.
The distribution of species abundances within an ecological community provides a window into ecological processes and has important applications in conservation biology as an indicator of disturbance. Previous work indicates that species abundance distributions might be independent of the scales at which they are measured which has implications for data interpretation. Here we formulate an analytically tractable model for the species abundance distribution at different scales and discuss the biological relevance of its assumptions. Our model shows that as scale increases, the shape of the species abundance distribution converges to a particular shape given uniquely by the Jaccard index of spatial species turnover and by a parameter for the spatial correlation of abundances. Our model indicates that the shape of the species abundance distribution is taxon specific but does not depend on sample area, provided this area is large. We conclude that the species abundance distribution may indeed serve as an indicator of disturbances affecting species spatial turnover and that the assumption of conservation of energy in ecosystems, which is part of the Maximum Entropy approach, should be re-evaluated.
生态群落中物种丰度的分布为我们了解生态过程提供了一个窗口，并且作为干扰的指标，在保护生物学中有重要的应用。先前的研究表明，物种丰度分布可能与它们的测量尺度无关，这对数据解释有重要意义。在这里，我们提出了一个在不同尺度上的物种丰度分布的可分析模型，并讨论了其假设的生物学意义。我们的模型表明，随着尺度的增加，物种丰度分布的形状收敛于一个特定的形状，该形状由空间物种周转率的杰卡德指数和丰度的空间相关性参数唯一确定。我们的模型表明，物种丰度分布的形状是分类群特有的，但不依赖于样本面积，只要该面积足够大。我们的结论是，物种丰度分布确实可以作为影响物种空间周转率的干扰的指标，并且生态系统中能量守恒的假设，这是最大熵方法的一部分，应该重新评估。
