期刊
DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS
卷 15, 期 3, 页码 379-389出版社
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00545.x
关键词
Areas of transition; biome; birds; complementary; country scale; energy availability; frogs; range-limited species; topographical heterogeneity
资金
- Avian Demography Unit (University of Cape Town)
- University of Pretoria and the DST-NRF
- Israel Science Foundation [740/04]
To examine whether at a sub-continental scale range-limited species tend to occur close to areas of transition between vegetation boundaries more often than expected by chance. South Africa and Lesotho. We examined the relationship between the distance of a grid square to ecological transition areas between vegetation types and both avian and frog range-limited species richness in the quadrat. We used quadrats at a spatial resolution of quarter degree (15' x 15' approximate to 676 km(2)). Spatial congruence between areas representing range-restricted species and those representing ecological transition zones was assessed using a random draw technique. Species richness and range size rarity are generally negatively correlated with distance to transition areas between vegetation communities when analysed for the whole region for both groups. Although this relationship becomes weaker after controlling for environmental energy and topographical heterogeneity, the explanatory power of distance to transition areas remains significant, and compared to the different biomes examined, accounts for most of the variation in bird richness (20%), frog richness (18%), range-restricted bird species (17%) and range-restricted frog species (16%) in the savanna biome. The random draw technique indicated that areas representing range-restricted species were situated significantly closer in space to those areas representing transition areas between vegetation communities than expected by chance. We find that at the sub-continental scale, when examined for South Africa, areas of transition between vegetation communities hold concentrations of range-limited species in both birds and frogs. We find that South African endemic/range-limited birds and frogs are located closer to ecological transition zones than endemics and non-endemics combined. This has important implications for ongoing conservation planning in a biogeographical context.
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