Species-area Curves, Spatial Aggregation, and Habitat Specialization in Tropical Forests

✍ Scribed by JOSHUA B. PLOTKIN; MATTHEW D. POTTS; NANDI LESLIE; N. MANOKARAN; JAMES LAFRANKIE; PETER S. ASHTON

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 651 KB
• Volume: 207
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.2000.2158

✦ Synopsis

The relationship between species diversity and sampled area is fundamental to ecology. Traditionally, theories of the species}area relationship have been dominated by randomplacement models. Such models were used to formulate the canonical theory of species}area curves and species abundances. In this paper, however, armed with a detailed data set from a moist tropical forest, we investigate the validity of random placement and suggest improved models based upon spatial aggregation. By accounting for intraspeci"c, small-scale aggregation, we develop a cluster model which reproduces empirical species}area curves with high "delity. We "nd that inter-speci"c aggregation patterns, on the other hand, do not a!ect the species}area curves signi"cantly. We demonstrate that the tendency for a tree species to aggregate, as well as its average clump size, is not signi"cantly correlated with the species' abundance. In addition, we investigate hierarchical clumping and the extent to which aggregation is driven by topography. We conclude that small-scale phenomena such as dispersal and gap recruitment determine individual tree placement more than adaptation to larger-scale topography.