Habitat diversity, ecological requirements of species and the Small Island Effect

Sfenthourakis, Spyros; Triantis, Kostas A.

doi:10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00526.x

Cited by 75 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In particular, they noted that archipelagos exhibit unusual species -area relationships (SARs): below a threshold island area, island species richness apparently varies independently of area. This phenomenon has become known as the smallisland effect [3][4][5][6]. The small-island effect is surprising not only because it violates MacArthur & Wilson's expectation for islands, but also because it is an exception to the putative ecological law that SARs should always be increasing functions [7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The prototypical example of the small-island effect is for vascular plants in the Kapingamarangi Atoll in Micronesia [1,10], but the phenomenon is general, being observed for a wide range of taxa and biogeographic island types, including lake islands and mountain tops [3]. Ecologists have therefore sought a general theory that explains the small-island effect, while also incorporating the classic island biogeography results for larger islands [3][4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous attempts to explain the small-island effect have centred around two main hypotheses [6]. The first is that extinction rates are independent of island area on small islands, because small islands are environmentally unstable and temporal turnover in species composition is rapid [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

et al. 2016

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theory of island biogeography predicts that island species richness should increase with island area. This prediction generally holds among large islands, but among small islands species richness often varies independently of island area, producing the so-called 'small-island effect' and an overall biphasic species -area relationship (SAR). Here, we develop a unified theory that explains the biphasic island SAR. Our theory's key postulate is that as island area increases, the total number of immigrants increases faster than niche diversity. A parsimonious mechanistic model approximating these processes reproduces a biphasic SAR and provides excellent fits to 100 archipelago datasets. In the light of our theory, the biphasic island SAR can be interpreted as arising from a transition from a nichestructured regime on small islands to a colonization-extinction balance regime on large islands. The first regime is characteristic of classic deterministic niche theories; the second regime is characteristic of stochastic theories including the theory of island biogeography and neutral theory. The data furthermore confirm our theory's key prediction that the transition between the two SAR regimes should occur at smaller areas, where immigration is stronger (i.e. for taxa that are better dispersers and for archipelagos that are less isolated).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

et al. 2016

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“…Generalists, however, are a ubiquitous component of island communities (van Valen 1965;Sfenthourakis and Triantis 2009), so the assumption that each species can occupy only one habitat is unrealistic (discussed below). Relaxing this assumption will diminish the importance of the area covered by each type of habitat in causing stochastic extinctions.…”

Section: Theoretical Modeling Of Island Richnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some specialists will be able to exploit these new habitats, and generalists will exploit both new and old habitats (Jüriado et al 2006). The presence of riparian habitats in large Aegean islands, for example, leads to a relatively rapid increase in species richness of terrestrial isopods, regardless of the area covered by such habitats (Sfenthourakis and Triantis 2009). …”

Section: Do Species Exploit Only One Type Of Habitat?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Island Species Richness Increases with Habitat Diversity

Hortal¹,

Triantis²,

Meiri³

et al. 2009

The American Naturalist

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Species richness is commonly thought to increase with habitat diversity. However, a recent theoretical model aiming to unify niche and island biogeography theories predicted a hump-shaped relationship between richness and habitat diversity. Given the contradiction between model results and previous knowledge, we examine whether the relationship between species richness and habitat diversity is consistently monotonically increasing and under which circumstances, if at all, such relationships could be hump shaped. We review the empirical evidence about the shape of such relationships and show that species richness on islands usually increases with habitat diversity and that it never decreases. We also critically examine the assumptions of the theoretical model and modify them to incorporate a less restrictive definition of niche width. The modified assumptions lead to simulations that better capture real patterns, using either simple parameters or observed distributions of niche breadth. Further work is needed to incorporate ecological interactions and metacommunity dynamics if the aim is to merge niche and island biogeography theories in a realistic modeling framework.

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Detecting the small island effect and nestedness of herpetofauna of the West Indies

Gao

Perry

2016

Ecology and Evolution

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To detect the small island effect (SIE) and nestedness patterns of herpetofauna of the West Indies, we derived and updated data on the presence/absence of herpetofauna in this region from recently published reviews. We applied regression‐based analyses, including linear regression and piecewise regressions with two and three segments, to detect the SIE and then used the Akaike's information criterion (AIC) as a criterion to select the best model. We used the NODF (a nestedness metric based on overlap and decreasing fill) to quantify nestedness and employed two null models to determine significance. Moreover, a random sampling effort was made to infer about the degree of nestedness at portions of the entire community. We found piecewise regression with three segments performed best, suggesting the species–area relationships possess three different patterns that resulted from two area thresholds: a first one, delimiting the SIE, and a second one, delimiting evolutionary processes. We also found that taxa with lower resource requirement, higher dispersal ability, and stronger adaptation to the environment generally displayed lower corresponding threshold values, indicating superior taxonomic groups could earlier end the SIE period and start in situ speciation as the increase of island size. Moreover, the traditional two‐segment piecewise regression method may cause poor estimations for both slope and threshold value of the SIE. Therefore, we suggest previous SIE detection works that conducted by two‐segment piecewise regression method, ignoring the possibility of three segments, need to be reanalyzed. Antinestedness occurred in the entire system, whereas high degree of nestedness could still occur in portions within the region. Nestedness may still be applicable to conservation planning at portions even if it is antinested at the regional scale. However, nestedness may not be applicable to conservation planning at the regional scale even if nestedness does exist among sampling islands from a portion.

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Habitat diversity, ecological requirements of species and the Small Island Effect

Cited by 75 publications

References 25 publications

Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

Maintenance of biodiversity on islands

Island Species Richness Increases with Habitat Diversity

Detecting the small island effect and nestedness of herpetofauna of the West Indies

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