Integrating Biogeographical Processes and Local Community Assembly. Hortal, J., De Marco, P., Santos, A. M. C., & Diniz-Filho Journal of Biogeography, 39(4):627–628, April, 2012.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
[Excerpt] The nature of ecological communities has been a longstanding question in ecology since the debate between F.E. Clements and H.A. Gleason (Ricklefs, 2008). While Clements (1936) viewed communities as closed structures that tend to persist through time, Gleason (1926) perceived them as dynamic entities resulting from the mere coincidence of species' distributions in space and time. [...] The absence of large-scale processes from Clements' ideas - which focus exclusively on local interactions - may create the false impression that community processes hardly scale up to geographical patterns. In contrast, Gleason's view embraces processes acting at multiple scales (from local habitat selection to the species' macroclimatic requirements), that determine the individualistic response of each species. [] [...] A bold proposal by Guisan & Rahbek (2011) may help unify analyses of local and regional processes into a single framework. It is well known that species richness predictions obtained by modelling directly the relationship between species numbers and the environment (macroecological models, MEMs) are different from those recovered by stacking the results of individual species distribution models (SDMs) (e.g. Aranda & Lobo, 2011). Guisan & Rahbek (2011) argue that such differences are the result of dispersal filtering and ecological assembly rules (EARs). Some of the species that could inhabit a given place according to their environmental requirements - which may be identified through species distribution modelling (SDM) - are prevented from establishing populations, first by historical events limiting dispersal within a region, and later by limitations to local coexistence - which can be partly measured through macroecological modelling (MEM). Feeding on this rationale, Guisan & Rahbek (2011) propose a hierarchical framework - named SESAM (spatially explicit species assemblage modelling) - to understand and predict species diversity patterns through a combination of SDM, MEM and the indirectly assumed roles of dispersal and biotic filters (i.e. EARs). [] [...] Only a few species from the local source pool are actually present in the local assemblage at a given moment of time. This is the scale at which the Gleasonian and Clementsian views collide, attributing the limits of local coexistence to different processes: habitat selection; or competition, facilitation and other biotic interactions, respectively. [] [...] Although integrating all the concepts and approaches discussed above needs further discussion, a comprehensive application of the SESAM framework has the potential to provide the basis for a synthesis of the joint effects of biogeographical and community-level processes on the diversity and structure of local communities. Future applications of SESAM in well-known systems, coupled with data on historical processes and life history traits, will allow a better understanding of the origin and dynamics of diversity patterns. [] [...]
@article{hortalIntegratingBiogeographicalProcesses2012,
  title = {Integrating Biogeographical Processes and Local Community Assembly},
  author = {Hortal, Joaq{\'u}{\i}n and De Marco, Paulo and Santos, Ana M. C. and {Diniz-Filho}},
  year = {2012},
  month = apr,
  volume = {39},
  pages = {627--628},
  issn = {0305-0270},
  doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02684.x},
  abstract = {[Excerpt] The nature of ecological communities has been a longstanding question in ecology since the debate between F.E. Clements and H.A. Gleason (Ricklefs, 2008). While Clements (1936) viewed communities as closed structures that tend to persist through time, Gleason (1926) perceived them as dynamic entities resulting from the mere coincidence of species' distributions in space and time. [...] The absence of large-scale processes from Clements' ideas - which focus exclusively on local interactions - may create the false impression that community processes hardly scale up to geographical patterns. In contrast, Gleason's view embraces processes acting at multiple scales (from local habitat selection to the species' macroclimatic requirements), that determine the individualistic response of each species.

[] [...]

A bold proposal by Guisan \& Rahbek (2011) may help unify analyses of local and regional processes into a single framework. It is well known that species richness predictions obtained by modelling directly the relationship between species numbers and the environment (macroecological models, MEMs) are different from those recovered by stacking the results of individual species distribution models (SDMs) (e.g. Aranda \& Lobo, 2011). Guisan \& Rahbek (2011) argue that such differences are the result of dispersal filtering and ecological assembly rules (EARs). Some of the species that could inhabit a given place according to their environmental requirements - which may be identified through species distribution modelling (SDM) - are prevented from establishing populations, first by historical events limiting dispersal within a region, and later by limitations to local coexistence - which can be partly measured through macroecological modelling (MEM). Feeding on this rationale, Guisan \& Rahbek (2011) propose a hierarchical framework - named SESAM (spatially explicit species assemblage modelling) - to understand and predict species diversity patterns through a combination of SDM, MEM and the indirectly assumed roles of dispersal and biotic filters (i.e. EARs).

[] [...]

Only a few species from the local source pool are actually present in the local assemblage at a given moment of time. This is the scale at which the Gleasonian and Clementsian views collide, attributing the limits of local coexistence to different processes: habitat selection; or competition, facilitation and other biotic interactions, respectively.

[] [...]

Although integrating all the concepts and approaches discussed above needs further discussion, a comprehensive application of the SESAM framework has the potential to provide the basis for a synthesis of the joint effects of biogeographical and community-level processes on the diversity and structure of local communities. Future applications of SESAM in well-known systems, coupled with data on historical processes and life history traits, will allow a better understanding of the origin and dynamics of diversity patterns.

[] [...]},
  journal = {Journal of Biogeography},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-14063889,~to-add-doi-URL,ecology,integration-techniques,species-distribution,species-richness},
  lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-14063889},
  number = {4}
}

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