How many freshwater diatoms are pH specialists? A response to Pither & Aarssen (2005)

Ecology Letters
Richard J TelfordH J B Birks

Abstract

Pither & Aarssen (2005) propose a null model approach to assess the proportion of niche specialist taxa along ecological gradients. They apply this methodology to a large data set of lacustrine diatom assemblages and conclude that a majority of the taxa are generalists on a pH gradient. This conflicts with previous work, which shows that many diatom taxa have a statistically significant relationship with pH. We demonstrate the methods used by Pither & Aarssen (2005) have a high Type II error for rare taxa, and that this problem is compounded by the non-uniform sampling of the pH gradient which effectively precludes acid-lake specialist diatoms from being recognized as such. We re-analyse the data used by Pither & Aarssen (2005) and show that most of the diatoms have a statistically significant relationship with pH, and we thus refute their conclusions that few diatom species are specialists.

References


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Citations

Jan 27, 2009·Trends in Biotechnology·Richard GordonFrithjof A S Sterrenburg
Jun 10, 2008·Protist·Andrew J Alverson
Nov 4, 2009·The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology·David BassThomas A Richards
May 6, 2019·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Virpi PajunenJanne Soininen

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