The dominance-diversity dilemma in animal conservation biology.
PLoS One
; 18(3): e0283439, 2023.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36972282
ABSTRACT
The alteration of environmental conditions has two major outcomes on the demographics of living organisms population decline of the common species and extinction of the rarest ones. Halting the decline of abundant species as well as the erosion of biodiversity require solutions that may be mismatched, despite being rooted in similar causes. In this study, we demonstrate how rank abundance distribution (RAD) models are mathematical representations of a dominance-diversity dilemma. Across 4,375 animal communities from a range of taxonomic groups, we found that a reversed RAD model correctly predicts species richness, based solely on the relative dominance of the most abundant species in a community and the total number of individuals. Overall, predictions from this RAD model explained 69% of the variance in species richness, compared to 20% explained by simply regressing species richness on the relative dominance of the most abundant species. Using the reversed RAD model, we illustrate how species richness is co-limited by the total abundance of a community and the relative dominance of the most common species. Our results highlight an intrinsic trade-off between species richness and dominance that is present in the structure of RAD models and real-world animal community data. This dominance-diversity dilemma suggests that withdrawing individuals from abundant populations might contribute to the conservation of species richness. However, we posit that the positive effect of harvesting on biodiversity is often offset by exploitation practices with negative collateral consequences, such as habitat destruction or species bycatches.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Ecossistema
/
Biodiversidade
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
PLoS One
Assunto da revista:
CIENCIA
/
MEDICINA
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Canadá