Herrera James P
Departments of Mammalogy, Division of Paleontology, Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA.
Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA.
J Anim Ecol. 2016 Jul;85(4):982-93. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12532. Epub 2016 May 23.
Models of ecological community assembly predict how communities of interacting organisms may be shaped by abiotic and biotic factors. Competition and environmental filtering are the predominant factors hypothesized to explain community assembly. This study tested the effects of habitat, phylogenetic and phenotypic trait predictors on species co-occurrence patterns and abundances, with the endemic primates of Madagascar as an empirical system. The abundance of 11 primate species was estimated along gradients of elevation, food resource abundance and anthropogenic habitat disturbance at local scales in south-east Madagascar. Community composition was compared to null models to test for phylogenetic and functional structure, and the effects of phylogenetic relatedness of co-occurring species, their trait similarity and environmental variables on species' abundances were tested using mixed models and quantile regressions. Resource abundance was the strongest predictor of community structure. Where food tree abundance was high, closely related species with similar traits dominated communities. High-elevation communities with lower food tree abundance consisted of species that were distantly related and had divergent traits. Closely related species had dissimilar abundances where they co-occurred, partially driven by trait dissimilarity, indicating character displacement. By integrating local-scale variation in primate community composition, evolutionary relatedness and functional diversity, this study found strong evidence that community assembly in this system can be explained by competition and character displacement along ecological gradients.
生态群落组装模型预测了相互作用的生物群落如何受到非生物和生物因素的影响。竞争和环境过滤是被认为可以解释群落组装的主要因素。本研究以马达加斯加的特有灵长类动物为实证系统，测试了栖息地、系统发育和表型特征预测因子对物种共现模式和丰度的影响。在马达加斯加东南部的局部尺度上，沿着海拔、食物资源丰度和人为栖息地干扰梯度，估计了11种灵长类物种的丰度。将群落组成与零模型进行比较，以测试系统发育和功能结构，并使用混合模型和分位数回归测试共生物种的系统发育相关性、它们的特征相似性和环境变量对物种丰度的影响。资源丰度是群落结构的最强预测因子。在食物树丰度高的地方，具有相似特征的近缘物种主导着群落。食物树丰度较低的高海拔群落由亲缘关系较远且具有不同特征的物种组成。近缘物种在共现时具有不同的丰度，部分原因是特征差异，这表明了性状替换。通过整合灵长类动物群落组成、进化相关性和功能多样性的局部尺度变化，本研究发现有力证据表明，该系统中的群落组装可以通过沿生态梯度的竞争和性状替换来解释。
