Species interactions can explain Taylor's power law for ecological time series

One of the few generalities in ecology, Taylor's power law, describes the species-specific relationship between the temporal or spatial variance of populations and their mean abundances. For populations experiencing constant per capita environmental variability, the regression of log variance versus log mean abundance gives a line with a slope of 2. Despite this expectation, most species have slopes of less than 2 (refs 2, 3-4), indicating that more abundant populations of a species are relatively less variable than expected on the basis of simple statistical grounds. What causes abundant populations to be less variable has received considerable attention, but an explanation for the generality of this pattern is still lacking. Here we suggest a novel explanation for the scaling of temporal variability in population abundances. Using stochastic simulation and analytical models, we demonstrate how negative interactions among species in a community can produce slopes of Taylor's power law of less than 2, like those observed in real data sets. This result provides an example in which the population dynamics of single species can be understood only in the context of interactions within an ecological community.     

Neutral theory and relative species abundance in ecology

The theory of island biogeography asserts that an island or a local community approaches an equilibrium species richness as a result of the interplay between the immigration of species from the much larger metacommunity source area and local extinction of species on the island (local community). Hubbell generalized this neutral theory to explore the expected steady-state distribution of relative species abundance (RSA) in the local community under restricted immigration. Here we present a theoretical framework for the unified neutral theory of biodiversity and an analytical solution for the distribution of the RSA both in the metacommunity (Fisher's log series) and in the local community, where there are fewer rare species. Rare species are more extinction-prone, and once they go locally extinct, they take longer to re-immigrate than do common species. Contrary to recent assertions, we show that the analytical solution provides a better fit, with fewer free parameters, to the RSA distribution of tree species on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, than the lognormal distribution.     

Patterns of relative species abundance in rainforests and coral reefs

A formidable many-body problem in ecology is to understand the complex of factors controlling patterns of relative species abundance (RSA) in communities of interacting species. Unlike many problems in physics, the nature of the interactions in ecological communities is not completely known. Although most contemporary theories in ecology start with the basic premise that species interact, here we show that a theory in which all interspecific interactions are turned off leads to analytical results that are in agreement with RSA data from tropical forests and coral reefs. The assumption of non-interacting species leads to a sampling theory for the RSA that yields a simple approximation at large scales to the exact theory. Our results show that one can make significant theoretical progress in ecology by assuming that the effective interactions among species are weak in the stationary states in species-rich communities such as tropical forests and coral reefs.     

淮南市十涧湖国家城市湿地公园鸟类多样性初步研究

2017年1月～12月,采用样线调查法和定点观察法相结合的方法,对淮南市十涧湖国家城市湿地公园鸟类多样性进行调查,共记录到鸟类14目39科共112种,其中有国家Ⅰ级保护动物1种,国家Ⅱ级保护鸟类2种,安徽省地方重点保护鸟类29种。鸟类居留类型分析表明,有留鸟36种(占32.2%),夏候鸟和冬候鸟均为27种(占24.1%),旅鸟22种(占19.6%)。从区系组成上来看,古北界种类最多,有52种(占46.4%),东洋界种14种(占12.5%),两界广布种46种(占41.1%)。公园内观察到水鸟49种,其中鸻鹬类种类和数量较多,雁鸭类数量较少。鸟类多样性的分析结果表明,春秋两季鸟类种类和数量较多,鸟类多样性指数也较高。调查区域内五类生境中,树林(灌丛)生境内的鸟类物种数和个体数最多,多样性指数也高于其它生境,明水水面内鸟类的物种数和个体数最少,多样性指数也最低。     

土壤细菌和真菌群落的物种续存模式对扰动的响应

通过研究物种存活概率和局域多度间的关系, 对微生物群落动态是否符合中性假说进行检验. 使用野外采集的土壤进行土壤微宇宙实验,微宇宙经受了稀释扰动,剔除一些非常稀有的物种. 微宇宙经过恢复培养后, 用454高通量焦磷酸测序方法分别对土壤细菌16SrRNA 基因和真菌18SrRNA 基因进行测序, 检测多度≥1的物种, 从而探究细菌和真菌物种组成相对于源土壤发生的变化. 结果发现: 恢复生长过程中细菌和真菌物种丰富度都显著降低(>50%); 受到扰动的微宇宙恢复生长以后, 土壤细菌和真菌物种存活概率与其在源土壤中的初始相对多度之间呈正相关, 这个结果符合中性假说的预测,即最初多度较高的物种平均灭绝概率较低.      

内蒙古草地土壤细菌区域分布与局域多度的关系

物种间区域分布与局域多度之间的正相关关系是宏生态学的经典模式之一,即局域高密度的物种地理分布范围广,而局域低密度的物种地理分布范围较窄.这种模式在不同的大型生物类群中得到了广泛的证实.但是微生物群落的相关研究还比较薄弱,并且已有工作主要集中在水体环境中.本文以内蒙古草地土壤细菌为研究对象,在3个不同的空间尺度上采集土壤样品,探讨土壤细菌区域分布与局域多度之间的关系.结果表明,在不同的地理尺度上,土壤细菌区域分布与局域多度之间均呈现显著的正相关关系,二者之间的相关性随分类阶元的降低而有所减弱.该结果暗示细菌群落中常见种和稀有种的多样性维持机制可能存在差异,生态位和中性过程可能同时在起作用.     

Dynamic response of Permian brachiopod communities to long-term environmental change

The fossil record preserves numerous natural experiments that can shed light on the response of ecological communities to environmental change. However, directly observing the community dynamics of extinct organisms is not possible. As an alternative, neutral ecological models suggest that species abundance distributions reflect dynamical processes like migration, competition, recruitment, and extinction. Live-dead comparisons suggest that such distributions can be faithfully preserved in the rock record. Here we use a maximum-likelihood approach to show that brachiopod (lamp shell) abundance distributions from four temporally distinct ecological landscapes from the Glass Mountains, Texas (of the Permian period), exhibit significant differences. Further, all four are better fitted by zero-sum multinomial distributions, characteristic of Hubbell's neutral model, than by log-normal distributions, as predicted by the traditional ecological null hypothesis. Using the neutral model as a guide, we suggest that sea level fluctuations spanning about 10 Myr altered the degrees of isolation and exchange among local communities within these ecological landscapes. Neither these long-term environmental changes nor higher-frequency sea level fluctuations resulted in wholesale extinction or major innovation within evolutionary lineages.     

浙江六十田自然保护小区常绿阔叶林群落特征及优势乔木种的动态

对浙江省磐安县六十田省级自然保护小区常绿阔叶林的群落结构特征及其主要乔木树种的种群动态进行了调查研究.根据各树种的重要值判断,该地区常绿阔叶林的主要乔木组成种为东南石栎(Lithocarpusharlandii)、红楠(Machilus thunbergii)、木荷(Schima superba)、米槠(Castanopsis carlesii)、青冈(Cyclobalanopsisglauca)、紫楠(Phoebe sheareri)和华东楠(Machilus leptophylla),其中东南石栎和木荷为主要优势种.群落中乔木层、灌木层、草本层及藤本的物种丰富度、多样性、均匀度都偏低,优势度相对较高;其生活型以包括藤本在内的高位芽植物占绝对优势,达85.45%;叶级以中型叶为主(占61.82%),小型叶次之(占29.09%);叶型以单叶占有较大的优势,达到89.09%;叶质以革质叶占优势(56.36%),纸质叶次之(40.00%).生活型及叶的特征表明该群落属于中亚热带常绿阔叶林.群落中主要乔木树种水平结构整体上呈均匀分布状态,说明群落中种内和种间竞争激烈.依据胸径级别频率分布的形状,7个主要组成种的种群结构可以大致归纳为:倒金字塔型、倒“J”型、纺锤型和双峰型.其中,种群结构呈倒金字塔型的东南石栎、米槠、青冈和紫楠及呈纺锤型的华东楠,因为缺乏幼苗和幼树,在演替过程中种群将衰退;而呈双峰型的红楠和呈倒“J”型的木荷,因有较为丰富的幼苗储备而将成为该群落的优势种.     

甘肃尕海湿地冬季肉鞭虫物种多样性研究

自2011年10月至2012年1月,用"非淹没培养皿法"和活体观察法对冬季尕海湿地内肉鞭虫物种多样性和群落特征进行了研究.共鉴定到肉鞭类原生动物87种,隶属于2亚门6纲13目26科39属,其中包括6个未定名种.在鞭毛亚门中眼虫目和动基体目为优势类群,物种数分别占该亚门物种总数的38.18%和25.45%.肉足亚门中变形目为优势类群,物种数占该亚门物种总数的62.5%.腰鞭目物种为该地区罕见类群,只有1属1种.研究结果表明,尕海湿地内肉鞭虫物种丰富,物种分布与海拔和样点湿度无明显关系,而与样点内生境的温度呈显著负相关性.     

Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities

Serious concerns have been raised about the ecological effects of industrialized fishing, spurring a United Nations resolution on restoring fisheries and marine ecosystems to healthy levels. However, a prerequisite for restoration is a general understanding of the composition and abundance of unexploited fish communities, relative to contemporary ones. We constructed trajectories of community biomass and composition of large predatory fishes in four continental shelf and nine oceanic systems, using all available data from the beginning of exploitation. Industrialized fisheries typically reduced community biomass by 80% within 15 years of exploitation. Compensatory increases in fast-growing species were observed, but often reversed within a decade. Using a meta-analytic approach, we estimate that large predatory fish biomass today is only about 10% of pre-industrial levels. We conclude that declines of large predators in coastal regions have extended throughout the global ocean, with potentially serious consequences for ecosystems. Our analysis suggests that management based on recent data alone may be misleading, and provides minimum estimates for unexploited communities, which could serve as the 'missing baseline' needed for future restoration efforts.     

内陆河流域浮床植物根际微生物群落特征与比较

为研究内陆河流域不同浮床植物的根际微生物群落结构、多样性、潜在生态功能及其差异,采集了位于沱江二级支流赤水河生态浮床上的风车草（Cyperus involucratus）、黄菖蒲（Iris pseudacorus）、再力花（Thalia dealbata）、鸢尾（Iris tectorum）、美人蕉（Canna indica）、梭鱼草（Pontederia cordata）6种植物生长旺盛时期的根系样本,通过细菌16sRNA片段高通量测序和生物信息学手段,分析了微生物群落结构组成、生物多样性以及潜在的生态功能。结果表明,变形菌门（Proteobacteria）在6种浮床植物根际细菌中占绝对优势,丰度达47.5% - 72.2%,在植物生长环境较为相似且空间距离较近的情况下,不同浮床植物根际微生物属水平优势种群丰度差异仍较大。微生物群落多样性由大到小依次为鸢尾、美人蕉、黄菖蒲、风车草、再力花、梭鱼草,同科同属的黄菖蒲和鸢尾根际细菌组成相对较为相似。风车草根际硝化/反硝化功能菌群丰度更高,梭鱼草根际芳香族化合物降解功能菌群丰度显著高于另外5种植物。根长、株高和生物量更大的植物根际微生物中芽殖杆菌属丰度显著更高,植物生长指标与部分根际细菌氮转化存在正相关关系。研究结果可为浮床植物根际微生物群落研究和生态浮床的建设优化提供参考。     

Coral reef diversity refutes the neutral theory of biodiversity

The global decline of coral reefs highlights the need to understand the mechanisms that regulate community structure and sustain biodiversity in these systems. The neutral theory, which assumes that individuals are demographically identical regardless of species, seeks to explain ubiquitous features of community structure and biodiversity patterns. Here we present a test of neutral-theory predictions with the use of an extensive species-level data set of Indo-Pacific coral communities. We show that coral assemblages differ markedly from neutral-model predictions for patterns of community similarity and the relative abundance of species. Within local communities, neutral models do not fit relative abundance distributions as well as the classical log-normal distribution. Relative abundances of species across local communities also differ markedly from neutral-theory predictions: coral communities exhibit community similarity values that are far more variable, and lower on average, than the neutral theory can produce. Empirical community similarities deviate from the neutral model in a direction opposite to that predicted in previous critiques of the neutral theory. Instead, our results support spatio-temporal environmental stochasticity as a major driver of diversity patterns on coral reefs.     

北京市古树多样性研究

根据2007年北京市古树名木调查统计数据,全市现有古树28科47属66种(含变种、变型、品种)39 408株.通过对古树数量、种类构成、地理成分、珍稀濒危及重点保护树种和特色古树进行分析研究,表明北京市古树具有以下特征:种类丰富,数量众多;地理成分多样,温带特征明显;珍稀树种和特色古树占相当比例.     

Large-scale processes and the Asian bias in species diversity of temperate plants

An important issue in the study of biodiversity is the extent to which global patterns of species richness reflect large-scale processes and historical contingencies. Ecological interactions in local assemblages may constrain the number of species that can coexist, but differences in diversity in similar habitats within different regions (diversity anomalies) suggest that this limit is not firm. Variation in rate of species production could influence regional and perhaps local diversity independently of the ecological capacity of an area to support coexisting species, thereby creating diversity anomalies. Temperate Zone genera of plants that are disjunct between similar environments in eastern Asia and eastern North America (EAS-ENA) have twice as many species in Asia as in North America. Because lineages of these genera in Asia and North America are mostly sister pairs, they share a common history of adaptation and ecological relationship before disjunction. Thus, the diversity anomaly in EAS-ENA genera is not an artefact of taxon or habitat sampling but reflects differences in the net diversification (speciation-extinction) of the lineages in each of the continents. Here we propose that the most probable cause of the EAS-ENA anomaly in diversity is the extreme physiographical heterogeneity of temperate eastern Asia, especially compared with eastern North America, which in conjunction with climate and sea-level change has provided abundant opportunities for evolutionary radiation through allopatric speciation.     

Local dispersal promotes biodiversity in a real-life game of rock-paper-scissors

One of the central aims of ecology is to identify mechanisms that maintain biodiversity. Numerous theoretical models have shown that competing species can coexist if ecological processes such as dispersal, movement, and interaction occur over small spatial scales. In particular, this may be the case for non-transitive communities, that is, those without strict competitive hierarchies. The classic non-transitive system involves a community of three competing species satisfying a relationship similar to the children's game rock-paper-scissors, where rock crushes scissors, scissors cuts paper, and paper covers rock. Such relationships have been demonstrated in several natural systems. Some models predict that local interaction and dispersal are sufficient to ensure coexistence of all three species in such a community, whereas diversity is lost when ecological processes occur over larger scales. Here, we test these predictions empirically using a non-transitive model community containing three populations of Escherichia coli. We find that diversity is rapidly lost in our experimental community when dispersal and interaction occur over relatively large spatial scales, whereas all populations coexist when ecological processes are localized.     

云南桫椤科植物的分类和地理分布

通过野外调查、查阅有关资料及标本,对云南境内桫椤科植物的分类、地理分布、丰富程度和生态习性进行了系统研究。云南省境内桫椤科植物共3属11 种,占我国(3 属约 20 种)总种数的 55%,其地理分布可划分为5个区,其中,滇东南区种类最为丰富,共有9种,占全省总种数的 81.8%;其次是滇南、滇西南区和滇西、滇西北区;中部高原区和滇东北区最少。     

Resource-based niches provide a basis for plant species diversity and dominance in arctic tundra.

Ecologists have long been intrigued by the ways co-occurring species divide limiting resources. Such resource partitioning, or niche differentiation, may promote species diversity by reducing competition. Although resource partitioning is an important determinant of species diversity and composition in animal communities, its importance in structuring plant communities has been difficult to resolve. This is due mainly to difficulties in studying how plants compete for below-ground resources. Here we provide evidence from a 15N-tracer field experiment showing that plant species in a nitrogen-limited, arctic tundra community were differentiated in timing, depth and chemical form of nitrogen uptake, and that species dominance was strongly correlated with uptake of the most available soil nitrogen forms. That is, the most productive species used the most abundant nitrogen forms, and less productive species used less abundant forms. To our knowledge, this is the first documentation that the composition of a plant community is related to partitioning of differentially available forms of a single limiting resource.     

重大水利水电工程对重要水生生物的影响与调控

针对我国多个流域所面临的生物资源更替与衰退问题,阐明重大水利水电工程对河流重要水生生物的影响机理,总结流域水生态调控方法和关键技术,以期为我国流域水生态文明建设和生态保护提供相关技术支撑。主要聚焦长江等我国大型河流,评述了重大水电工程影响下四大家鱼、中华鲟等重要水生生物的生存现状与变化趋势;通过揭示重大水利水电工程建设与运行对重要水生生物生境的多种胁迫效应,分析了重要水生生物自然繁殖的可调控性与实现途径;进而结合重大水利水电工程生态调控实践,系统论述了促进重要水生生物自然繁殖的水利工程优化调控关键技术及其适用性。     

河南省植物多样性研究

根据最新资料从植物的分类单位、地理成分、特有种类、珍稀濒危植物以及群落类型等方面论述了河南省野生植物的多样性,并从古生态环境和现代生态环境以及地理位置等方面分析了本省植物多样性形成的原因。     

井冈山山顶矮林维管植物区系特征与物种多样性研究

山顶矮林具有重要的生态功能与景观价值,因其生境的独特性和岛屿状分布的特殊性等特点成为人们研究和关注的热点。本文采用样地调查法,对井冈山山顶矮林植物区系特征与物种多样性进行了研究。结果表明：井冈山山顶矮林维管植物物种组成丰富,有维管植物76科124属193种,蔷薇科、杜鹃花科、山茶科、樟科和壳斗科是组成井冈山山顶矮林的优势科,杜鹃属是组成井冈山山顶矮林的优势属。井冈山山顶矮林植物区系起源古老,成分复杂,珍稀濒危植物少,区系成分具有由亚热带向暖温带过渡的性质。井冈山山顶矮林的Simpson指数和Pielou指数较高,Shannon-wiener指数和物种丰富度较低,4种多样性指数在不同的样地、层次和群系之间都存在一定的差异,且未表现出相同的变化规律,这与群落类型、群落所处环境条件、人为因素的影响和所采用的物种多样性性指数有关。建议加强对井冈山山顶矮林的保护。