Building relevant ecological indicators with basic data: Species and community specialization indices derived from atlas data

Vimal, Ruppert; Devictor, Vincent

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.10.024

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The correlation we found between species' co-occurrencebased niche breadth and regional range size (R² adj = 0.48) was similarly reported from the Western Carpathians (Mráz et al 2016) and higher than the correlations reported from Slovenia (Marinšek et al 2015), the French Alps (Boulangeat et al 2012) and southern France (Vimal and Devictor 2015). Likewise, the correlation we found between both regionally derived niche breadth estimates (r = 0.75) ranks on the upper limit of previously published relationships (Fridley et al 2007, Carboni et al 2016, Pannek et al 2016.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Of niches and distributions: range size increases with niche breadth both globally and regionally but regional estimates poorly relate to global estimates

et al. 2018

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The relationship between species' niche breadth (i.e. the range of environmental conditions under which a species can persist) and range size (i.e. the extent of its spatial distribution) has mostly been tested within geographically restricted areas but rarely at the global extent. Here, we not only tested the relationship between range size (derived from species' distribution data) and niche breadth (derived from species' distribution and co-occurrence data) of 1255 plant species at the regional extent of the European Alps, but also at the global extent and across both spatial scales for a subset of 180 species. Using correlation analyses, linear models and variation partitioning, we found that species' realized niche breadth estimated at the regional level is a weak predictor of species' global niche breadth and range size. Against our expectations, distribution-derived niche breadth was a better predictor for species' range size than the co-occurrence-based estimate, which should, theoretically, account for more than the climatically determined niche dimensions. Our findings highlight that studies focusing on the niche breadth vs range size relationship must explicitly consider spatial mismatches that might have confounded and diminished previously reported relationships.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Of niches and distributions: range size increases with niche breadth both globally and regionally but regional estimates poorly relate to global estimates

et al. 2018

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“…, Le Viol et al . , Vimal & Devictor ). However, such metrics have been criticized as they only indicate the balance of (in the case of CSI) specialists and generalists, and do not indicate whether these changes are due to increases in generalists or declines in specialists (Gosselin ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Community-weighted means, such as CSI, are often used as indicators of change in communities in time and space (Devictor et al 2008, Davey et al 2012, Le Viol et al 2012, Vimal & Devictor 2015. However, such metrics have been criticized as they only indicate the balance of (in the case of CSI) specialists and generalists, and do not indicate whether these changes are due to increases in generalists or declines in specialists (Gosselin 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing densities of generalist species underlie apparent homogenization of UK bird communities

Sullivan

Newson

Pearce‐Higgins

2016

Ibis

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13Generalist species are becoming increasingly dominant in European bird communities. This has been 14 taken as evidence of biotic homogenization, where generalist 'winners' systematically replace 15 specialist 'losers'. We test this by relating changes in the average specialisation of UK bird 16 communities to changes in the density of species with different degrees of habitat-specialisation. 17Although we find the expected continued decline in community specialisation, this was driven by a 18 combination of a strong increase in the density of the most generalist quartile of species and declines 19 in the density of moderately generalist species. Contrary to expectation, specialist species increased 20 slightly over the 18 year study period, but had little effect on the overall trend in community 2Changes to the environment, such as climate change and land-use intensification, do not affect all 28 species equally (Rader et al. 2014). Habitat specialists may be more vulnerable to environmental 29 change than habitat generalists, due to their more restricted habitat requirements and potentially lower 30 ability to exploit new opportunities (Shultz et al. 2005). Environmental change could therefore lead to 31 a loss of differentiation in species composition between habitats, as a few generalist 'winners' replace 32 specialist 'losers ' (McGill et al. 2015). This is supported by negative relationships between 33 population growth rate and specialisation in a wide range of taxa (Munday 2004, Matthews et al. 34 2014, Timmermann et al., 2015, including birds (Julliard et al. 2004, Jiguet et al. 2007, Salido et al. 35 2012, and by observations of communities becoming increasingly composed of individuals of 36 generalist species (Davey et al. 2012, Timmermann et al. 2015. 37However, while individuals of generalist species make up an increasing proportion of 38European bird communities (Davey et al. 2012, Le Viol et al. 2012, it is unclear whether these 45We follow changes in UK bird communities over 18 years (2598 ± 597 SD 1 km squares 46 monitored each year). Our aims are to (1) quantify changes in community specialisation and (2) assess 47 the extent to which these changes reflect changes in the populations of specialist and generalist 66In this study, we used records in the first two bounded distance bands, and excluded records 67 of flying birds, with the exception of swifts, hirundines and raptors, as these species either are aerial 68 feeders or hunt from the air, so flying birds of these species are likely to be using resources within the Table S1 for a list of species). 79In order to turn raw abundances into estimates of density, we estimated detection probabilities Table S2 for other broader habitat classes). These covariates allow variation 88 in detectability over the breeding season and between habitats to be modelled. These models were 89 used to predict the probability of individuals of a species being detected in each transect section, and 90 these were averaged per species to obtain the pre...

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“…On the other side since the majority of Trentino region is located in relatively homogeneous mountain areas, this effect is limited to some specific areas. Several other studies, also performed in a heterogeneous environment, have used a similar grid to analyze plant biodiversity [58][59][60]. Furthermore, our choice to use such a grid size was also because it fully overlaps with the data provided by the Forest Service of the Province of Trento, from where we could infer several other soil and dendrometrical parameters.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Historical Data: Recovering a Forgotten Floristic and Vegetation Database for Biodiversity Monitoring

Geri

Porta

Zottele

et al. 2016

IJGI

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Abstract:Multitemporal biodiversity data on a forest ecosystem can provide useful information about the evolution of biodiversity in a territory. The present study describes the recovery of an archive used to determine the main Schmid's vegetation belts in Trento Province, Italy. The archive covers 20 years, from the 1970s to the 1990s. During the FORCING project (an Italian acronym for Cingoli Forestali, i.e., forest belts), a comprehensive process of database recovering was executed, and missing data were digitized from historical maps, preserving paper-based maps and documents. All of the maps of 16 forest districts, and the related 8000 detected transects, have been georeferenced to make the whole database spatially explicit and to evaluate the possibility of performing comparative samplings on up-to-date datasets. The floristic raw data (approximately 200,000 specific identifications, including frequency indices) still retain an important and irreplaceable information value. The data can now be browsed via a web-GIS. We provide here a set of examples of the use of this type of data, and we highlight the potential and the limits of the specific dataset and of the historical database, in general.

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Building relevant ecological indicators with basic data: Species and community specialization indices derived from atlas data

Cited by 16 publications

References 34 publications

Of niches and distributions: range size increases with niche breadth both globally and regionally but regional estimates poorly relate to global estimates

Of niches and distributions: range size increases with niche breadth both globally and regionally but regional estimates poorly relate to global estimates

Changing densities of generalist species underlie apparent homogenization of UK bird communities

Mapping Historical Data: Recovering a Forgotten Floristic and Vegetation Database for Biodiversity Monitoring

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