The species-area relationship: new challenges for an old pattern

By Mark V. Lomolino. 2001

219 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The species-area relationship (i.e., the relationship between area and the number of species found in that area) is one of longest and most frequently studied patterns in nature. Yet there remain some important and interesting questions on the nature of this relationship, its causality, quantification and application for both ecologists and conservation biologists. Traditionally, the species-area relationship describes the very general tendency for species number to increase with island area; a relationship whose slope declines (but remains positive) as area increases. The true relationship, however, may be much more complicated than this, and may in many cases approximate a sigmoidal relationship. On small islands, species number may vary independently of island area. Species richness then increases as we consider larger islands, but the curve eventually slows and asymptotes or levels off when richness equals that of the the source or mainland pool. The relationship may also include a secondary phase of increase in richness if island area becomes large enough to allow in situ speciation. Causal explanations for this relationship may, therefore, need to be multifactorial and include a range of processes from disturbance and stochastic variation in habitat quality on the very small islands, to ecological interactions, immigration, extinction and, finally, evolution on the larger islands.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a8b70d6363db3f4b92da84cd65577e72fb15f884

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Citations in the corpus

Which function describes the species–area relationship best? A review and empirical evaluation (2009, background): “It is often claimed that SARs of different kinds should approach an upper asymptote for large areas (general: Connor & McCoy, 1979; Williams, 1995; He & Legendre, 1996; Tjørve, 2003; type A: Cain, 1938; Tüxen, 1970; Mueller-Dombois & Ellenberg, 1974; Schmitt, 1999; type C: Lomolino, 2000, 2001).”
Area, shape and isolation of tropical forest fragments: effects on tree species diversity and implications for conservation (2003, background): “Species–area relationships indicated that large forest fragments contained the greatest number of tree species, attributable to ecological processes and also to sampling effects (Hill et al., 1994; Lomolino, 2001).”
Biodiversity on urban roundabouts—Hemiptera, management and the species–area relationship (2004, background): “…for a long time (Arrhenius, 1921) and much effort has been put to describing species–area relationships mathematically as well as proposing possible mechanisms that may give rise to them (MacArthur & Wilson, 1967; Connor & McCoy, 1979; McGuinness, 1984; Hill, Curran, & Foody, 1994; Lomolino, 2001).”
Using the Species-Area Relationship to Set Baseline Targets for Conservation (2004, background): “The meaning of k is debatable (Gould 1979, Lomolino 2000, 2001), but we will not discuss this here.”
The island species–area relationship: biology and statistics (2012, methodology): “…of species diversity (Williams, 1943; Preston, 1962; MacArthur & Wilson, 1967; McGuiness, 1984; Holt et al., 1999; Rosenzweig, 1995; Hubbell, 2001; Lomolino, 2001; Azovsky, 2002; Martin & Goldenfeld, 2006; Triantis et al., 2008a, 2010; Dengler, 2009; Harte et al., 2009; Tjørve, 2009; Williams et…”
Anthropogenic modulators of species–area relationships in Neotropical primates: a continental‐scale analysis of fragmented forest landscapes (2013, methodology): “Species–area relationships (SARs) are therefore ubiquitous in most archipelagic landscapes and have been widely used to estimate local extinction rates associated with declining habitat areas (Angermeier & Schlosser, 1989; Lomolino, 2001; Drakare et al., 2006; He & Hubbell, 2011).”
A floristic analysis of the lowland dipterocarp forests of Borneo (2003, background): “As diversity is negatively related with isolation and habitat size (MacArthur & Wilson, 1963; Schoener, 1976; Rosenzweig, 1995; Lomolino, 2001; Triantis et al., 2003), it is likely that these two factors have at least contributed to the lower diversity of north-eastern Borneo.”