Department of Biological Sciences, Marine Sciences Program, Florida International University, North Miami, Florida, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011;6(11):e27104. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027104. Epub 2011 Nov 3.
Ontogenetic niche shifts occur across diverse taxonomic groups, and can have critical implications for population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem function. In this study, we provide a hypothesis-testing framework combining univariate and multivariate analyses to examine ontogenetic niche shifts using stable isotope ratios. This framework is based on three distinct ontogenetic niche shift scenarios, i.e., (1) no niche shift, (2) niche expansion/reduction, and (3) discrete niche shift between size classes. We developed criteria for identifying each scenario, as based on three important resource use characteristics, i.e., niche width, niche position, and niche overlap. We provide an empirical example for each ontogenetic niche shift scenario, illustrating differences in resource use characteristics among different organisms. The present framework provides a foundation for future studies on ontogenetic niche shifts, and also can be applied to examine resource variability among other population sub-groupings (e.g., by sex or phenotype).
个体发育生态位转移发生在不同的分类群中，对种群动态、群落结构和生态系统功能都有至关重要的影响。在这项研究中，我们结合了单变量和多变量分析，提供了一个假设检验框架，使用稳定同位素比来研究个体发育生态位转移。这个框架基于三个不同的个体发育生态位转移情景，即 (1) 没有生态位转移，(2) 生态位扩张/减少，以及 (3) 大小类之间的离散生态位转移。我们根据三个重要的资源利用特征，即生态位宽度、生态位位置和生态位重叠，制定了识别每个情景的标准。我们为每个个体发育生态位转移情景提供了一个实证示例，说明了不同生物体之间资源利用特征的差异。本框架为未来的个体发育生态位转移研究提供了基础，也可以应用于检验其他种群亚群（如性别或表型）之间的资源可变性。
