A test of multiple hypotheses for the species richness gradient of South American owls

Oecologia
J A F Diniz-FilhoBradford A Hawkins

Abstract

Many mechanisms have been proposed to explain broad scale spatial patterns in species richness. In this paper, we evaluate five explanations for geographic gradients in species richness, using South American owls as a model. We compared the explanatory power of contemporary climate, landcover diversity, spatial climatic heterogeneity, evolutionary history, and area. An important aspect of our analyses is that very different hypotheses, such as history and area, can be quantified at the same observation scale and, consequently can be incorporated into a single analytical framework. Both area effects and owl phylogenetic history were poorly associated with richness, whereas contemporary climate, climatic heterogeneity at the mesoscale and landcover diversity explained ca. 53% of the variation in species richness. We conclude that both climate and environmental heterogeneity should be retained as plausible explanations for the diversity gradient. Turnover rates and scaling effects, on the other hand, although perhaps useful for detecting faunal changes and beta diversity at local and regional scales, are not strong explanations for the owl diversity gradient.

References

Apr 11, 2001·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·C Rahbek, G R Graves
Sep 13, 2001·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·J T KerrJ Cihlar
Feb 21, 2002·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Wes SechrestJohn L Gittleman
Aug 19, 2008·The American Naturalist·B J van RensburgK J Gaston

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Citations

Sep 29, 2005·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Karl L EvansKevin J Gaston
Aug 25, 2006·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Richard D Stevens
Sep 25, 2007·The American Naturalist·Thiago Fernando L V B RangelRobert K Colwell
Apr 24, 2019·Environmental Science and Pollution Research International·Arkadiusz Fröhlich, Michał Ciach

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