Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, CB 3280, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27599, USA.
Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, D.C., 20013, USA.
Ecology. 2018 Aug;99(8):1825-1835. doi: 10.1002/ecy.2398. Epub 2018 Jun 26.
Transient species occur infrequently in a community over time and do not maintain viable local populations. Because transient species interact differently than non-transients with their biotic and abiotic environment, it is important to characterize the prevalence of these species and how they impact our understanding of ecological systems. We quantified the prevalence and impact of transient species in communities using data on over 19,000 community time series spanning an array of ecosystems, taxonomic groups, and spatial scales. We found that transient species are a general feature of communities regardless of taxa or ecosystem. The proportion of these species decreases with increasing spatial scale leading to a need to control for scale in comparative work. Removing transient species from analyses influences the form of a suite of commonly studied ecological patterns including species-abundance distributions, species-energy relationships, species-area relationships, and temporal turnover. Careful consideration should be given to whether transient species are included in analyses depending on the theoretical and practical relevance of these species for the question being studied.
过渡物种在群落中出现的时间很短，不能维持当地的存活种群。由于过渡物种与生物和非生物环境的相互作用方式不同于非过渡物种，因此了解这些物种的普遍性以及它们如何影响我们对生态系统的理解非常重要。我们使用了超过 19000 个群落时间序列的数据，这些数据涵盖了各种生态系统、分类群和空间尺度，来量化过渡物种在群落中的普遍性及其影响。我们发现，过渡物种是群落的普遍特征，无论分类群或生态系统如何。这些物种的比例随着空间尺度的增加而减少，这就需要在比较研究中控制尺度。从分析中去除过渡物种会影响一系列通常研究的生态模式的形式，包括物种-丰度分布、物种-能量关系、物种-面积关系和时间周转率。应根据所研究问题中这些物种的理论和实际相关性，仔细考虑是否将过渡物种纳入分析。
