Environmental prevalence and the distribution of species richness across climatic niche space

Abstract

Aim The reciprocal relationship between geographical and ecological niche space known as Hutchinson's duality provides a powerful framework to analyse the relationship between biogeographical distributions and environmental variables. However, little attention has been given to how the structure of niche space is associated with the distribution of species across niche space itself. We examined whether environmental prevalence (i.e. the relative availability of different combinations of climatic conditions) can predict the climate‐richness relationship and consequently influence broad‐scale patterns of species richness. Location Worldwide Methods We tested our hypothesis using distribution data on >10,000 species of amphibians and mammals. We measured the environmental prevalence of five climatic variables associated with broad‐scale patterns of species richness. To this end, we divided each variable into equally spaced intervals representing particular climatic regimes, and calculated the geographical area where each regime is present. We then used species‐area regression models and hierarchical partitioning to test the relationship between environmental prevalence and the number of species in each climatic regime, and measure the relative importance of environmental prevalence and climate in explaining species richness across climatic niche space. Results Our results indicate a strong relationship between environmental prevalence and the number of species found in each climatic regime, especially in temperature‐related variables. Moreover, environmental prevalence was generally a stronger predictor of species richness than climate. Results were similar for amphibians and mammals, being observed at both global‐ and realm‐scales. Main conclusions Our findings suggest that the relationship between climate and species richness can arise from the variation in environmental prevalence. This conclusion challenges the traditional idea that climate itself is a primary driver of the climate‐richness relationship. We argue that environmental prevalence should be considered in future tests of the relationship between environmental variables and species richness.

Rarity, geography, and plant exposure to global change in the California Floristic Province

“…species in the CFP that may face high levels of habitat decline due to both climate and land use change (>70% exposure) include California buckeye (Aesculus californica) and blue oak (Quercus douglasii), two tree species whose distributions are concentrated in the foothills of the Coast Ranges and the western Sierra Nevada regions that are predicted to face rapid climate change as well as exurban development during the next century (Figure1). Furthermore, while species with large range sizes tend to have broader environmental niches, homogenous environmental conditions may be prevalent across a region and therefore contain widespread species with narrow environmental affinities(Meyer & Pie, 2018), as we found for both blue oak and California buckeye. This finding highlights that broad spatial distributions may not buffer species from the consequences of global change, especially if their ranges are in highly vulnerable areas.Although niche breadth and range size were positively associated for our study species (r = .44; Supporting InformationFigure S4.1) and across taxa in previous research (Slatyer et al, 2013), they had F I G U R E 5 Proportion of variance in exposure to climate change (CC; a) and land use change (LUC; b) explained by rarity traits (range size, niche breadth, number of habitat patches and patch isolation), geographic traits (mean elevation, topographic heterogeneity and distance to coast), and representative concentration pathway (RCP) emissions scenario.…”

The evolution of climatic niche breadth in terrestrial vertebrates

“…The second class of explanation for the observed variation in climatic niche breadths has to do with the geographical availability of different climatic regimes, a phenomenon recently dubbed environmental prevalence (Meyer & Pie, 2018). The basic idea of environmental prevalence is the observation that climatic conditions are not isotropic, that is, not all environmental conditions are equally available.…”

“…Rather, given that some conditions are more prevalent, different lineages have adapted their environmental niches in proportion to their relative prevalence. Indeed, Meyer and Pie (2018) demonstrated that environmental prevalence was a better predictor of species richness in a variety of ecto-and endotherm taxa, explaining more of the geographical variation in species richness than the climatic variables themselves (e.g., annual mean temperature). In the context of climatic niches, several studies have recently F I G U R E 2 Variation in climatic niche breadth across terrestrial vertebrates (birds, amphibians, mammals, and squamates).…”

A Grinnellian Niche Perspective on Species-Area Relationships

“…In this contribution, I analyze SARs at a biogeographic scale (extents of 10 6 to 10 7 km 2 and resolutions of grids of 10 2 to 10 3 km 2 ) using the amount of climatic space as the predictor (Meyer and Pie 2018). The approach is based on theoretical ideas related to Grinnellian niches (Jackson and Overpeck 2000;Soberón and Peterson 2005;Colwell and Rangel 2009;Peterson et al 2011).…”