Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities
The causes of biodiversity patterns are controversial and elusive due to complex environmental variation, covarying changes in communities, and lack of baseline and null theories to differentiate straightforward causes from more complex mechanisms. To address these limitations, we developed general...
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 2024-06-23T07:46:26+00:00 Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities Okie, Jordan G. Van Horn, David J. Storch, David Barrett, John E. Gooseff, Michael N. Kopsova, Lenka Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina D. 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences volume 282, issue 1809, page 20142630 ISSN 0962-8452 1471-2954 journal-article 2015 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 2024-06-10T04:15:13Z The causes of biodiversity patterns are controversial and elusive due to complex environmental variation, covarying changes in communities, and lack of baseline and null theories to differentiate straightforward causes from more complex mechanisms. To address these limitations, we developed general diversity theory integrating metabolic principles with niche-based community assembly. We evaluated this theory by investigating patterns in the diversity and distribution of soil bacteria taxa across four orders of magnitude variation in spatial scale on an Antarctic mountainside in low complexity, highly oligotrophic soils. Our theory predicts that lower temperatures should reduce taxon niche widths along environmental gradients due to decreasing growth rates, and the changing niche widths should lead to contrasting α- and β-diversity patterns. In accord with the predictions, α-diversity, niche widths and occupancies decreased while β-diversity increased with increasing elevation and decreasing temperature. The theory also successfully predicts a hump-shaped relationship between α-diversity and pH and a negative relationship between α-diversity and salinity. Thus, a few simple principles explained systematic microbial diversity variation along multiple gradients. Such general theory can be used to disentangle baseline effects from more complex effects of temperature and other variables on biodiversity patterns in a variety of ecosystems and organisms. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic The Royal Society Antarctic Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282 1809 20142630 |
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The Royal Society |
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crroyalsociety |
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English |
description |
The causes of biodiversity patterns are controversial and elusive due to complex environmental variation, covarying changes in communities, and lack of baseline and null theories to differentiate straightforward causes from more complex mechanisms. To address these limitations, we developed general diversity theory integrating metabolic principles with niche-based community assembly. We evaluated this theory by investigating patterns in the diversity and distribution of soil bacteria taxa across four orders of magnitude variation in spatial scale on an Antarctic mountainside in low complexity, highly oligotrophic soils. Our theory predicts that lower temperatures should reduce taxon niche widths along environmental gradients due to decreasing growth rates, and the changing niche widths should lead to contrasting α- and β-diversity patterns. In accord with the predictions, α-diversity, niche widths and occupancies decreased while β-diversity increased with increasing elevation and decreasing temperature. The theory also successfully predicts a hump-shaped relationship between α-diversity and pH and a negative relationship between α-diversity and salinity. Thus, a few simple principles explained systematic microbial diversity variation along multiple gradients. Such general theory can be used to disentangle baseline effects from more complex effects of temperature and other variables on biodiversity patterns in a variety of ecosystems and organisms. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Okie, Jordan G. Van Horn, David J. Storch, David Barrett, John E. Gooseff, Michael N. Kopsova, Lenka Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina D. |
spellingShingle |
Okie, Jordan G. Van Horn, David J. Storch, David Barrett, John E. Gooseff, Michael N. Kopsova, Lenka Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina D. Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
author_facet |
Okie, Jordan G. Van Horn, David J. Storch, David Barrett, John E. Gooseff, Michael N. Kopsova, Lenka Takacs-Vesbach, Cristina D. |
author_sort |
Okie, Jordan G. |
title |
Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
title_short |
Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
title_full |
Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
title_fullStr |
Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
title_full_unstemmed |
Niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
title_sort |
niche and metabolic principles explain patterns of diversity and distribution: theory and a case study with soil bacterial communities |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic |
op_source |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences volume 282, issue 1809, page 20142630 ISSN 0962-8452 1471-2954 |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2630 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
282 |
container_issue |
1809 |
container_start_page |
20142630 |
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1802645866577657856 |