Biol 862 - Current Topics in Ecology
Multi-species and Multi-site Community Patterns and Metapopulation
Processes
Instructor: Ed Connor
Wednesdays 9:
Trailer O-2
The analysis and interpretation of patterns in the distribution or abundance of species among a set of sites is and has been an important endeavor in community and population ecology. Because community-wide ecological patterns are very complex and for large scale patterns it may be impossible to perform replicated field experiments, in many areas of inquiry in ecology the examination and interpretation of non-experimental evidence will remain an important, if not central, component to understanding how nature works. In particular, community ecologists have been fascinated by multispecies patterns of presence/absence or “incidence” among islands, habitat patches, or other sampling units. Research has focused on patterns such as: 1) species-area relationships, 2) species’ co-occurrence patterns, 3) species/genus ratios, 4) pairwise site-similarity indices, 5) the degree of nestedness of biotas, and 6) the relationship between a species’ abundance and its distribution. Much of the theoretical framework for the interpretation of these patterns derives from the Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography (MacArthur and Wilson 1963, 1967).
Population ecologists have more recently focused on the concept of metapopulations and have attempted to explain the distribution or incidence of populations of a single to a few species among a series of sites. However, the underlying processes affecting the distribution of species among a set of sites is still derived from the colonization-extinction dynamic portrayed by the equilibrium theory of island biogeography (Levins 1970). The analysis of metapopulation distribution or abundance can be viewed as a within species analogue to the study of patterns in the distribution and abundance of multispecies communities.
This seminar will focus on the analysis and interpretation of
multispecies patterns and population processes among
a set of sites – islands, habitat fragments, or other sampling units. Any topic
within this framework is a potential subject for discussion. Each student or
group of students will be expected to read and review the literature on a
particular problem and present an oral presentation and prepare an annotated
bibliography on that topic.
Potential Topics
Species-area relationships
Nestedness of biotas
Distribution-abundance relationships
Local-regional species-richness relationships
Patterns of species co-occurrence
Patterns of site similarity
Density-area relationships
Metapopulation dynamics
Metacommunity dynamics
Source-sink dynamics
Effects of the landscape matrix
Sampling and experimental design issues in detecting metapopulation dynamics or community patterns