Flower‐visitor communities of an arcto‐alpine plant—Global patterns in species richness, phylogenetic diversity and ecological functioning

AbstractIn the intensively farmed, homogenous agricultural landscape of the North China Plain, family graveyards form distinct cultural landscape features. In addition to their cultural value, these graveyards represent semi-natural habitat islands whose potential roles in biodiversity conservation and ecological functioning has remained poorly understood. In this study, we investigated plant species richness on 199 family graveyards of different ages and sizes. In accordance with biogeography theory, both overall and insect-pollinated plant species richness increased with area and age of graveyards. Even small graveyards show a strong potential for conserving local plant richness, and a mosaic of both large and small family graveyards could play an important role in the conservation of farmland biodiversity and related ecosystem functions. The launch of agri-environmental measures that conserve and create semi-natural habitats, in turn benefitting agricultural biodiversity and ecological functioning, has proven difficult in China due to the shortage of dispensable arable land. Given the great value of family graveyards as semi-natural habitats reflected in our study, we propose to focus preliminary efforts on conserving these landscape features as existing, widespread and culturally important semi-natural habitat islands. This would represent an effective, complementary policy to a subsequent re-establishment of other semi-natural habitats for the conservation of biodiversity and ecological functioning in agricultural landscapes.

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The species richness-elevation relationship: global patterns of variation in chironomid richness in mountain lakes

Insect Conservation and Diversity ◽

10.1111/icad.12341 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 339-350

Author(s):

Luciana Motta ◽

Adriana Ruggiero ◽

Guillermo de Mendoza ◽

Julieta Massaferro

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Mountain Lakes ◽

Global Patterns

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Inferring global species richness from megatransect data and undetected species estimates

Contributions to Zoology ◽

10.1163/18759866-20191347 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 88 (1) ◽

pp. 42-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Bernhard A. Huber ◽

Anne Chao

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

New Species ◽

Confidence Interval ◽

Incidence Data ◽

Total Species Richness ◽

Species Incidence ◽

Biogeographic Regions ◽

Global Patterns ◽

The Impact ◽

Total Species

Ratio-like approaches for estimating global species richness have been criticised for their unjustified extrapolation from regional to global patterns. Here we explore the use of cumulative percentages of ‘new’ (i.e., not formally described) species over large geographic areas (‘megatransects’) as a means to overcome this problem. In addition, we take into account undetected species and illustrate these combined methods by applying them to a family of spiders (Pholcidae) that currently contains some 1,700 described species. The raw global cumulative percentage of new species (‘new’ as of the end of 2008, when 1,001 species were formally described) is 75.1%, and is relatively constant across large biogeographic regions. Undetected species are estimated using the Chao2 estimator based on species incidence data (date by species and locality by species matrices). The estimated percentage of new species based on the date by species matrices is 76.0% with an estimated standard error (s.e.) of 2.6%. This leads to an estimated global species richness of about 4,200 with a 95% confidence interval of (3,300, 5,000). The corresponding values based on locality by species matrices are 84.2% (s.e. 3.0%) and 6,300 with a 95% confidence interval of (4,000, 8,600). Our results suggest that the currently known 1,700 species of Pholcidae may represent no more than about 25–40% of the total species richness. The impact of further biasing factors like geography, species size and distribution, cryptic species, and model assumptions needs to be explored.

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Metabolic asymmetry and the global diversity of marine predators

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aat4220 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 363 (6425) ◽

pp. eaat4220 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

John M. Grady ◽

Brian S. Maitner ◽

Ara S. Winter ◽

Kristin Kaschner ◽

Derek P. Tittensor ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Spatial Patterns ◽

Marine Mammals ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Latitudinal Gradient ◽

Latitudinal Gradients ◽

Competitive Interactions ◽

Marine Predators ◽

Theoretical Predictions ◽

The Tropics

Species richness of marine mammals and birds is highest in cold, temperate seas—a conspicuous exception to the general latitudinal gradient of decreasing diversity from the tropics to the poles. We compiled a comprehensive dataset for 998 species of sharks, fish, reptiles, mammals, and birds to identify and quantify inverse latitudinal gradients in diversity, and derived a theory to explain these patterns. We found that richness, phylogenetic diversity, and abundance of marine predators diverge systematically with thermoregulatory strategy and water temperature, reflecting metabolic differences between endotherms and ectotherms that drive trophic and competitive interactions. Spatial patterns of foraging support theoretical predictions, with total prey consumption by mammals increasing by a factor of 80 from the equator to the poles after controlling for productivity.

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Elasmobranch diversity, conservation and management along Wadge Bank, South India

Indian Journal of Animal Research ◽

10.18805/ijar.b-3778 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

K. Karuppasamy ◽

P. Jawahar ◽

S. David Kingston ◽

V. K. Venkataramani ◽

V. Vidhya

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

South India ◽

Fish Communities ◽

Taxonomic Diversity ◽

Management Measures ◽

Conservation And Management ◽

D Value

The study was undertaken to document the elasmobranch diversity and their abundance along Wadge Bank. Species were collected fortnightly during June 2015 to May 2016 from three landing centres viz., Chinnamuttom,Colachel and Vizhinjam of Wadge Bank. A total of 1,575 specimens were collected during the period and 44 species were identified belonging to 8 orders, 13 families and 25 genera. Among the recorded \families,Carcharhinidae is the most dominant family with 12 species. The Colachel landing centre was rich in diversity with 43 species followed by Chinnamuttom 39 species and Vizhinjam26 species. The highest Shannon Weiner diversity (H’ value) was observed at Colachel (4.17) followed by Chinnamuttom (4.11) and Vizhinjam (3.76). The Margalef’s species richness (‘d’) value was assessed at Colachel (4.55) followed by Chinnamuttom (4.01) and Vizhinjam (2.91). The Pielou’s evenness (J’) estimated was 0.7786, 0.7700 and 0.8005respectively, for Chinnamuttom, Colachal and Vizhinjam. The highest taxonomic diversity value was observed at Colachel (60.33) and the lowest during at Vizhinjam (54.08). Among the three landing centres studied, the total phylogenetic diversity (sPhi+) was found to be the lowest at Vizhinjam (940) and highest at Colachel landing centre (1720). Bray Curtis similarities measure was also calculated, fish communities were separated into several clusters based on seasons. The conservation of elasmobranchs and the management measures to be followed along the Wadge Bank is also discussed.

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