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16 - Spatiotemporal scaling of species richness: patterns, processes, and implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

By
Ethan P. White
Edited by
David Storch ,
Pablo Marquet  and
James Brown
Ethan P. White
Affiliation:
Utah State University, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico
David Storch
Affiliation:
Charles University, Prague
Pablo Marquet
Affiliation:
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
James Brown
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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Summary

The resemblance between time and space, in its simplest form, may be seen by driving a stake into the open water of a lake and then taking a transect toward the shore. We pass first through planktonic vegetation, then perhaps water lilies, then marsh, then grassland, then a succession of forest stages to climax forest. But we can pass through the same succession in the same order without moving at all. We may just sit by the stake for a few years or centuries and the seral stages will come to us one after the other as the lake fills in or drains.

Frank W. Preston (1960)

Introduction

Understanding observed patterns of species diversity is a major focus of ecological research (e.g. Hutchinson, 1959; Brown, 1981; Gaston, 2000). However, it is increasingly well established that observed patterns and correlates of species richness are strongly dependent on the spatial scale of analysis (e.g. Levin, 1992; Wright, Currie & Maurer, 1993; Mittelbach et al., 2001; Rahbek & Graves, 2001). This dependence results from differences in how species richness changes with the area sampled (Scheiner et al., 2000; Chase & Leibold, 2002; Lyons & Willig, 2002).

There are literally hundreds of studies on the effects of spatial scale on species richness (the species–area relationship), and numerous additional studies on spatial species turnover (e.g. Connor & McCoy, 1979; Rosenzweig, 1995; Koleff, Gaston & Lennon, 2003).

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Information
Scaling Biodiversity , pp. 325 - 346
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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