The contribution of species–genetic diversity correlations to the understanding of community assembly rules

Abstract

C h o i c e E d i t o r ' s OIKOS Correlations between genetic and species diversity (SGDCs) are increasingly considered in studies of biological communities, because they allow insights on underlying ecological processes. We first show that the classic expectation of positive SGDCs, due to parallel processes acting on both diversities, does not hold when considering the available empirical evidence. More importantly, we propose a unified conceptual and methodological framework to analyze SGDCs, emphasizing that multiple ecological factors occurring at various scales that can affect them in opposite ways, and to quantify the contribution of these factors to SGDCs. This framework has improved performance when quantifying SGDCs in several species, and certainly provides an entry to community processes that is complementary to other approaches. Synthesis

Correlations between broad‐scale taxonomic and genetic differentiations suggest a dominant imprint of historical processes on beta diversities

“…Both of these values are superior to the average value of 0.221 reported by Lamy et al. (). They are also around three times superior to the average value of 0.139 found by Fourtune et al.…”

“…Moreover, our results contribute new insights into the study of β‐SGDCs. With the study of 22 new β‐SGDCs, we increased the number of β‐SGDCs (43) previously reported in the literature by more than 50% (see Lamy et al., for the most recent review). We found an average raw correlation between TD and GD of 0.433, and an independent correlation (i.e.…”

“…Meirmans, ), or because the mitochondrial gene COI is not directly under environmental selection. Finally, the proposed frameworks to interpret SGDCs (Lamy et al., ; Vellend & Geber, ) suggest that correlations between species diversity and genetic diversity may also result from a causal action of species diversity on genetic diversity or vice versa. For instance, if the focal species (i.e.…”

Deciphering the drivers of negative species–genetic diversity correlation in Alpine amphibians

“…In principle, this could be a promising approach for species rich communities, where most species are locally rare (Hubbell, ), and/or for elusive animals, such as tropical amphibians (Heyer, Donnelly, McDiarmid, Hayek, & Foster, 1994). However, SGDC patterns can be extremely complex, given the multiple processes that determine them (Lamy et al., ). In single‐species SGDC studies, the choice of the focal species may determine the sign and strength of the correlation, since different species may differ in ecological preferences and interspecific interactions.…”

“…Conversely, in our study, SEM highlighted an opposite influence of site factors on the two levels of diversity (Figure ). This outcome suggests that the focal species (common frog) shows different ecological responses, compared to the other species of the community (Lamy et al., ), although not directly excluding different potential explanations for the negative SGDC (e.g., interspecific interactions).…”