Commonness patterns and the size of the species pool along a tropical elevational gradient: insights using a new quantitative tool

Arellano, Gabriel; Cayola, Leslie; Loza, Isabel; Torrez, Vania; Macía, Manuel J.

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0587.2013.00546.x

Cited by 16 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(128 reference statements)

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“…For example, Arellano et al . () found dominance by a subset of tree species at the landscape level (~35 × 35 km survey area) in the TDF of Madidi, Bolivia; and Dzib‐Castillo et al . () reported similar patterns (including some of the same dominant species identified here) in a ~20 × 20 km patch of dry forest in Campeche, Mexico.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…While oligarchic tree species in lowland Amazonia must be able to thrive under variable conditions (Arellano et al . ), climatic constraints in humid forests are less severe than those experienced in tropical dry forests (TDF), where pronounced dry season requires specific adaptive survival strategies (Gentry , Murphy & Lugo ). Furthermore, the comparatively high rates of endemism in TDFs relative to humid forests (Gentry , Linares‐Palomino et al .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Commonness, rarity, and oligarchies of woody plants in the tropical dry forests of Mexico

2017

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We assessed woody plant communities in two widely separated forests in the tropical dry forest (TDF) biome of Mexico for evidence of similar patterns of species commonness and rarity. We used belt transects laid out along contour lines (i.e., constant elevation) and stratified across elevation gradients at sites in Jalisco and Oaxaca to sample woody plant species diversity, abundance, relative frequency and basal area. We assembled a combined species list and compared species found in both sites (shared) to species found in only one site, assessing whether the most and least common species at a site tended to be shared or unshared. Of the 8242 individuals sampled, 370 species or morpho‐species were identified, with 222 species recorded at the Jalisco site and 270 at the Oaxaca site—122 (33%) species were shared across sites. Abundance, frequency and basal area of shared species were greater on average than for unshared species, and were positively correlated across sites. A subset of 68 shared species (18%) accounted for over half of all individuals encountered at the two sites. Species in the most common quartile were more likely to be shared than expected by chance, while species in the least common quartile were less likely. A genus‐level analysis found similar patterns. Our findings suggest that the TDF of Pacific coast Mexico shows evidence of widespread dominance by a small subset of species. These findings have potentially important implications for predicting species composition, understanding the role of oligarchic species in ecological processes, and conserving rare species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

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confidence: 99%

Commonness, rarity, and oligarchies of woody plants in the tropical dry forests of Mexico

2017

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“…Although most of the papers that support the oligarchic hypothesis have been focused in the lowland forests (e.g. Pitman et al 2001;Vormisto et al 2004;Macía and Svenning 2005), it is known that species richness and the degree of dominance of species are negatively correlated (Bazzaz 1975;Huston 1979) and then it seems plausible that the species are more common, in average, at higher elevations, where there are fewer species (Arellano et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

et al. 2014

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The aim of this work is to examine whether there exists a link between local and landscape patterns of species commonness, and if these are related to morphological traits in tropical plant communities. The Madidi region (Bolivian tropical Andes) is selected as study location. We estimated local and landscape commonness, rarity classes, height, diameter, number of stems, and habit for[2,300 species. We employed correlations to evaluate the relationship between local scale commonness and landscape scale commonness. We performed ANCOVA and multinomial logistic regressions to predict commonness and rarity variables from the morphological traits. We repeated the analyses for six different forest types, including dry forests and wet forests along a 3,477 m elevation gradient. We found a positive relationship between local and landscape commonness in all Communicated by Peter Ashton. forest types. Additionally, we found that, plant height influences the local and landscape commonness, and that the apportioning of species into rarity classes depends greatly on the species habit and, at lesser degree, on the number of stems. Our main conclusions are: (1) Approaches to commonness and rarity based on abundance only or occurrence only could summarize most of the relevant information to characterize commonness and rarity patterns: both approaches, in practice, do not supply independent information. (2) The species traits determine which species are rare and which ones are common, which indicates that commonness and rarity patterns are the result of non-neutral trait-based community assembly processes.

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“…We calculated species commonness based on a modified version of the h index, a widely known bibliometric tool for measuring academic performance (Hirsch ), following Arellano et al. (). We assigned to each species a commonness proportional h index ( h p ) when it was present in h p per cent of plots and accounted for h p per cent or more of the individuals in each of those plots.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche breadth of oligarchic species in Amazonian and Andean rain forests

Arellano

Cala

Macía

2014

J Vegetation Science

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Aim To test the niche breadth hypothesis (NBH), which states that dominant species have broader environmental tolerances than rare species, focusing on oligarchic species distributions (1) along the gradients of edaphic and climatic individual variables, and (2) within the n‐dimensional environmental frame defined by all edaphic and climatic variability. Location Amazonian and Andean tropical rain forests along a ca. 3000 m elevation gradient, covering an area of 200 × 200 km in northwestern Bolivia. Methods All woody plants with a DBH ≥2.5 cm were measured in 98 0.1‐ha plots. We analysed 18 chemical properties of the soils in each plot. Climatic and topographic variables were obtained from available open‐access databases. Three measures were calculated for each of the species found at each forest type: (1) regional‐scale dominance based on frequency and local abundance, (2) niche breadth along each of the environmental variables, and (3) total niche size within the whole environment. Results Oligarchic species showed broader niche breadths than the other species that constituted the community assembly in both Amazonian and Andean rain forests. The niche breadth of any species tended to be positively correlated with its degree of dominance. The Amazonian forest showed a stronger oligarchic pattern than the Andean forest, and the Amazonian common species showed larger niches overall. However, this pattern differed for some particular variables: Amazonian oligarchies had narrower niches along the variables related to organic matter and most climatic variables, whereas Andean oligarchies had narrower niches along several micronutrient factors and temperature variables. Conclusions The results provide strong empirical support for the NBH in tropical rain forests. However, different patterns of dominance were found in the two habitats: oligarchic species ranged from narrow‐niched species to very broad generalist species. Broad‐niched oligarchic species have also been reported in other regions, suggesting an important role of niche size linking commonness at different scales. Oligarchic species exhibit relatively narrow niches with respect to soil factors if measured along wide gradients, regardless of the forest type studied. In contrast, the opposite pattern was found for many climatic variables, indicating higher sensitivity to climate in Amazonia compared to the Andes. Despite these differences, Amazonia has much larger total niche sizes for its common species than the Andes overall.

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Commonness patterns and the size of the species pool along a tropical elevational gradient: insights using a new quantitative tool

Cited by 16 publications

References 58 publications

Commonness, rarity, and oligarchies of woody plants in the tropical dry forests of Mexico

Commonness, rarity, and oligarchies of woody plants in the tropical dry forests of Mexico

Commonness and rarity determinants of woody plants in different types of tropical forests

Niche breadth of oligarchic species in Amazonian and Andean rain forests

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