Community Composition and Nested-Subset Analyses: Basic Descriptors for Community Ecology

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley-Blackwell andNordic Society Oikos are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Oikos. MMinireviews provides an opportunity to summarize existing knowledge of selected ecological areas, with special emphasis on current topics where rapid and significant advances are occurring. Reviews should be concise and not too wide-ranging. All key REVIENV s *references should be cited. A summary is required. Community composition and nested-subset analyses: basic descriptors for community ecology Wade B. Worthen Worthen, W. B. 1996. Community composition and nested-subset analyses: basic descriptors for community ecology. -Oikos 76: 417-426.Three primary descriptors of community structure are the number, identities (composition), and abundances of species therein. Over the past 35 years, most attention has focused on relationships involving number (species-area and species-energy relationships) or abundance distributions (broken-stick, geometric, log-normal, core-satellite, etc.). Composition patterns have been underemphasized, even though several tools for addressing particular non-random patterns in species composition are available. One non-random pattern in community composition is nested subset structure. A community has a nested subset structure if the species found in depauperate replicates are also found in progressively more species-rich assemblages. In this review, the problems of failing to consider composition patterns like nestedness are described, using species-area relationships and the SLOSS debate (single large or several small reserves) as an example. In addition, nestedness analyses are promoted as: 1) important descriptive tools for determining whether a community has this common non-random pattern of species composition, and 2) as important investigative tools for suggesting mechanisms potentially structuring a community.W. B. Worthen, Biology Dept, Furman Univ., SC 29613, USA (worthengfurman.edu).

Nested species subsets of amphibians and reptiles in Thousand Island Lake

“…18:00-24:00 以～0.7 km/h 的速度在 LED 强聚光灯 照明下沿着样线搜索前进, 记录距离样线 2～3 m 范围内的蛙类和蛇类 (Jaeger, 1994 (Worthen, 1996)。首先, 嵌套格局不仅关注群落的物种丰度 (species richness)和多度(abundance), 更重要的是它 还关注群落组成(community composition) (Worthen, 1996); 其次, 嵌套格局分析仅仅基于物种是否出现 的"存在"(presence)与"不存在"(absence)数据。 由于该类数据非常容易获得, 因此嵌套格局为分析 群落结构提供了经济有效的研究工具 (Wright et al, 1998)。 鉴于目前两栖爬行类正经历全球性的种群下 降和灭绝危机 (Stuart et al, 2004;Whitfield et al, 2007), 而现在有关该类群嵌套格局研究还很少被 关注, 因此以后应该加强该领域的研究。 致谢：千岛湖本地的章庙元等渔民为野外工作 提供了大量人力帮助, 特此致谢！…”

Vegetation patterns of boreal herb-rich forests in the Koli region, eastern Finland: classification, environmental factors and conservation aspects

“…The forest floor is sparsely covered by bryophytes . In terms of vegetation, herb-rich forests are the most luxuriant and species-rich forests in Finland (Alanen 1992, Kuusipalo 1984, 1996. The herb-rich tree stand can be composed of broad-leaved trees (e.g.…”

“…In conservation biology, the application of the theory of island biogeography (Simberloff and Abele 1976, Järvinen 1982, Quinn and Harrison 1988 and the species-area relationship have focused on the patterns of species richness (Worthen 1996). The SLOSS (a single large or several small) debate is an application of the island theory to the reserve network design.…”

“…Biotic communities are said to be nested when the species in speciespoor sites are subsets of the species present at richer sites. Thus, perfect nestedness would indicate that a single large site contains all the species present in the network, while the species composition in several small sites would be smaller and comprise only the most common species (Cook 1995, Worthen 1996. The phenomenon of nestedness has largely resurrected the SLOSS debate (Boecklen 1997), although the focus is on the species composition, rather than on species richness.…”

Variaciones espacio temporales de la estructura comunitaria de endoparasitos en peces intermareales de Chile central: descriptores parasitologicos, composicion de especies y anidamiento

“…Varios estudios han abordado la organización y existencia de estructura en las comunidades de parásitos y los factores que influyen en ella, mediante el uso de modelos basados en patrones nulos, siendo el índice de anidamiento uno de los modelos más empleados (Poulin, 1996(Poulin, , 1998(Poulin, , 2001Rohde et al, 1998;Poulin & Valtonen, 2002;González & Poulin, 2005). Entre las ventajas del uso de los modelos de anidamiento destaca el hecho de que permiten considerar a cada hospedero de la misma especie como hábitats similares en tiempo y espacio (Poulin, 2007), constituyendo una útil herramienta para indagar sobre los posibles factores y mecanismos que pueden estar estructurando la comunidad, al permitir relacionar la organización de la comunidad con características biológicas de los parásitos y los hospederos (Patterson, 1984;Worthen, 1996;McQuaid & Britton, 2013;Aparicio-Rizzo & Muñoz, 2015), así como con factores geográficos y ambientales (Wright et al, 1998;Timi & Poulin, 2003;González & Poulin, 2005).…”