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The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient
Environmental heterogeneity is among the most important factors governing community structure. Besides the widespread evidence supporting positive relationships between richness and environmental heterogeneity, negative and unimodal relationships have also been reported. However, few studies have at...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4623746/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep15723 |
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author | Yang, Zhiyong Liu, Xueqi Zhou, Mohua Ai, Dexiecuo Wang, Gang Wang, Youshi Chu, Chengjin Lundholm, Jeremy T. |
author_facet | Yang, Zhiyong Liu, Xueqi Zhou, Mohua Ai, Dexiecuo Wang, Gang Wang, Youshi Chu, Chengjin Lundholm, Jeremy T. |
author_sort | Yang, Zhiyong |
collection | PubMed |
description | Environmental heterogeneity is among the most important factors governing community structure. Besides the widespread evidence supporting positive relationships between richness and environmental heterogeneity, negative and unimodal relationships have also been reported. However, few studies have attempted to test the role of the heterogeneity on species richness after removing the confounding effect of resource availability or environmental severity. Here we constructed an individual-based spatially explicit model incorporating a long-recognized tradeoff between competitive ability and stress-tolerance ability of species. We explored the impact of the level of resource availability (i.e. the position of the community along a gradient of environmental severity) on the heterogeneity-diversity relationship (HDR). The results indicate that the shape of HDR depends on the community position along the environmental gradient: at either end of the gradient of environmental severity, a positive HDR occurred, whereas at the intermediate levels of the gradient, a unimodal HDR emerged. Our exploration demonstrates that resource availability/environmental severity should be considered as a potential factor influencing the shape of the HDR. Our theoretical predictions represent hypotheses in need of further empirical study. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4623746 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46237462015-11-03 The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient Yang, Zhiyong Liu, Xueqi Zhou, Mohua Ai, Dexiecuo Wang, Gang Wang, Youshi Chu, Chengjin Lundholm, Jeremy T. Sci Rep Article Environmental heterogeneity is among the most important factors governing community structure. Besides the widespread evidence supporting positive relationships between richness and environmental heterogeneity, negative and unimodal relationships have also been reported. However, few studies have attempted to test the role of the heterogeneity on species richness after removing the confounding effect of resource availability or environmental severity. Here we constructed an individual-based spatially explicit model incorporating a long-recognized tradeoff between competitive ability and stress-tolerance ability of species. We explored the impact of the level of resource availability (i.e. the position of the community along a gradient of environmental severity) on the heterogeneity-diversity relationship (HDR). The results indicate that the shape of HDR depends on the community position along the environmental gradient: at either end of the gradient of environmental severity, a positive HDR occurred, whereas at the intermediate levels of the gradient, a unimodal HDR emerged. Our exploration demonstrates that resource availability/environmental severity should be considered as a potential factor influencing the shape of the HDR. Our theoretical predictions represent hypotheses in need of further empirical study. Nature Publishing Group 2015-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4623746/ /pubmed/26508413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep15723 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Yang, Zhiyong Liu, Xueqi Zhou, Mohua Ai, Dexiecuo Wang, Gang Wang, Youshi Chu, Chengjin Lundholm, Jeremy T. The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title | The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title_full | The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title_fullStr | The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title_full_unstemmed | The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title_short | The effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
title_sort | effect of environmental heterogeneity on species richness depends on community position along the environmental gradient |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4623746/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep15723 |
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