Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Oecologia. 2011 May;166(1):241-51. doi: 10.1007/s00442-010-1831-x. Epub 2010 Nov 16.
Elucidating the mechanisms underlying the assembly and dynamics of ecological communities is a fundamental goal of ecology. Two conceptual approaches have emerged in this respect: the niche-assembly view and the neutral perspective. The debate as to which approach best explains the biodiversity patterns observed in nature is becoming outdated, as ecologists increasingly agree on the existence of a niche-neutral continuum of community dynamical behaviors. However, attempts to make the continuum idea operational and measurable remain sparse. Here, we propose a model-based approach to achieving this. The proposed methodology consists of separating out fluctuations in species abundances into niche-mediated and stochastic factors, linking the niche configuration to community dynamics through competition, and adding demographic stochasticity. This results in a comprehensive framework including neutrality and strict niche segregation as extreme cases. We develop an index of departure from neutral drift as a surrogate for community position on the niche-neutral continuum. We evaluate the performance of our modeling approach with simulated data, and subsequently use the model to analyze rodent web-trapping data from a real-world system. The model fitting is carried out with a Bayesian approach using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods.
阐明生态群落组装和动态的机制是生态学的一个基本目标。在这方面出现了两种概念方法：生态位组装观点和中性观点。关于哪种方法最能解释自然界中观察到的生物多样性模式的争论已经过时，因为生态学家越来越一致认为，群落动态行为存在一个生态位-中性连续体。然而，使连续体思想具有可操作性和可衡量性的尝试仍然很少。在这里，我们提出了一种基于模型的方法来实现这一目标。所提出的方法包括将物种丰度的波动分为生态位介导的和随机因素，通过竞争将生态位结构与群落动态联系起来，并添加人口随机性。这导致了一个包括中性和严格生态位隔离作为极端情况的综合框架。我们开发了一个偏离中性漂移的指标，作为群落在生态位-中性连续体上位置的替代指标。我们使用模拟数据评估我们的建模方法的性能，然后使用该模型分析来自真实系统的啮齿动物网络陷阱数据。模型拟合是使用贝叶斯方法通过马尔可夫链蒙特卡罗模拟方法进行的。
