Global associations between terrestrial producer and vertebrate consumer diversity

Jetz, Walter; Kreft, Holger; Ceballos, Gerardo; Mutke, Jens

doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1005

Cited by 96 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The overall trend was similar, but stronger than recently found for patterns of richness (34). However, the degree of correlation within the 4 classes differed markedly (individual vertebrate classes: r s ϭ 0.73Ϫ0.82; Fig.…”

supporting

confidence: 72%

A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions

Kier

Kreft

Lee

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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1,034

818

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Endemism and species richness are highly relevant to the global prioritization of conservation efforts in which oceanic islands have remained relatively neglected. When compared to mainland areas, oceanic islands in general are known for their high percentage of endemic species but only moderate levels of species richness, prompting the question of their relative conservation value. Here we quantify geographic patterns of endemism-scaled richness (''endemism richness'') of vascular plants across 90 terrestrial biogeographic regions, including islands, worldwide and evaluate their congruence with terrestrial vertebrates. Endemism richness of plants and vertebrates is strongly related, and values on islands exceed those of mainland regions by a factor of 9.5 and 8.1 for plants and vertebrates, respectively. Comparisons of different measures of past and future human impact and land cover change further reveal marked differences between mainland and island regions. While island and mainland regions suffered equally from past habitat loss, we find the human impact index, a measure of current threat, to be significantly higher on islands. Projected land-cover changes for the year 2100 indicate that land-use-driven changes on islands might strongly increase in the future. Given their conservation risks, smaller land areas, and high levels of endemism richness, islands may offer particularly high returns for species conservation efforts and therefore warrant a high priority in global biodiversity conservation in this century.biodiversity ͉ conservation ͉ human impact ͉ terrestrial vertebrates ͉ vascular plants W orldwide loss of biodiversity requires global conservation priority setting to channel limited international conservation resources to regions of highest conservation value and need for action (1-5). Approaches for using biological data as a component of priority setting vary but can largely be divided into (i) algorithmbased assessments such as minimum-area sets or gap analyses (2, 6-8) and (ii) index-based assessments using indices such as endemism or species richness as surrogates for the conservation value of a region (1, 4, 9). While many theoretical arguments underpin the strengths of algorithm-based assessments (2, 8, 10, 11), they require detailed distribution data that are only available for few taxonomic groups-almost exclusively terrestrial vertebrates (6, 9, 12-15), on which systematic conservation planning has thus relied increasingly in the past years. Such detailed data are not available for the vast majority of taxonomic groups on the global scale including vascular plants. Although great effort is being made in digitizing existing data from natural history collections for conservation purposes (16, 17), biodiversity loss is arguably proceeding more rapidly than the documentation of species distributions. Hence, an inventory-based approach, which forms a main basis for the present study, is a workable solution if global conservation planning is to be informed by vascular plants (18), a group of o...

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supporting

confidence: 72%

A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions

Kier

Kreft

Lee

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

1,034

818

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…While cross-taxon associations in richness patterns above and beyond environment are found (27), environmental variables such as temperature and productivity tend to be much stronger predictors and surrogates (28,29).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking global turnover of species and environments

Buckley

Jetz

2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Patterns of species turnover are central to the geography of biodiversity and resulting challenges for conservation, but at broad scales remain relatively little understood. Here, we take a first spatially-explicitly and global perspective to link the spatial turnover of species and environments. We compare how major groups of vertebrate ectotherms (amphibians) and endotherms (birds) respond to spatial environmental gradients. We find that high levels of species turnover occur regardless of environmental turnover rates, but environmental turnover provides a lower bound for species turnover. This lower bound increases more steeply with environmental turnover in tropical realms. While bird and amphibian turnover rates are correlated, the rate of amphibian turnover is four times steeper than bird rates. This is the same factor by which average geographic ranges of birds are larger than those of amphibians. Narrow-ranged birds exhibit rapid rates of species turnover similar to those for amphibians, while wide-ranged birds largely drive the aggregate patterns of avian turnover. We confirm a strong influence of the environment on species turnover that is mediated by range sizes and regional history. In contrast to geographic patterns of species richness, we find that the turnover in one group (amphibians) is a much better predictor for the turnover in another (birds) than is environment. This result confirms the role of amphibian sensitivity to environmental conditions for patterns of turnover and supports their value as a surrogate group. This spatially-explicit analysis of environmental turnover provides understanding for conservation planning in changing environments.beta diversity ͉ biodiversity ͉ distance decay ͉ environmental gradients ͉ spatial turnover U nderstanding patterns of species turnover is central to both applied issues of conservation planning (1, 2) and to long-standing conceptual questions on the origin and distribution of biodiversity (3, 4). Linking these species turnover patterns to changes in environmental conditions is crucial to addressing how the edges of species' ranges are delineated (5). Both environmental dissimilarity and geographic distance are central causes of species turnover (6). Along local environmental gradients, species distributions often represent the outcome of competitive sorting (7,8). At broader scales, evolutionary histories of speciation and extinction, along with environmental conditions, constrain the richness and distribution of species (9-11). We examine how both the environment and species composition change over geographic space to disentangle the influence of environmental conditions and space on species turnover. This extends Whittaker's studies (8) of species turnover along environmental gradients to global scales.We term our examination of changes in species composition along spatial and environmental gradients species turnover (8,12). While beta diversity is often used synonymously with species turnover (13), beta diversity can also refer to mathematical part...

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“…In this model, much like the model recently offered to explain correlations between consumer and producer richness (Jetz et al 2009), diversity begets diversity. The third possibility is that mammal and bird richness directly influences human pathogen richness by serving as alternative hosts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global drivers of human pathogen richness and prevalence

et al. 2010

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The differences in the richness and prevalence of human pathogens among different geographical locations have ramifying consequences for societies and individuals. The relative contributions of different factors to these patterns, however, have not been fully resolved. We conduct a global analysis of the relative influence of climate, alternative host diversity and spending on disease prevention on modern patterns in the richness and prevalence of human pathogens. Pathogen richness (number of kinds) is largely explained by the number of birds and mammal species in a region. The most diverse countries with respect to birds and mammals are also the most diverse with respect to pathogens. Importantly, for human health, the prevalence of key human pathogens (number of cases) is strongly influenced by disease control efforts. As a consequence, even where disease richness is high, we might still control prevalence, particularly if we spend money in those regions where current spending is low, prevalence is high and populations are large.

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Global associations between terrestrial producer and vertebrate consumer diversity

Cited by 96 publications

References 56 publications

A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions

A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions

Linking global turnover of species and environments

Global drivers of human pathogen richness and prevalence

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