Background. The availability of environmental energy, as measured by temperature, is expected to limit the abundance and distribution of endotherms wintering at temperate latitudes. A prediction of this hypothesis is that birds should attain their highest abundances in warmer areas. However, there may be a spatial mismatch between species preferred habitats and species preferred temperatures, s...

Broad patterns in distribution and abundance can elucidate processes of evolution. A positive association between local abundance and the size of the geographic range has been demonstrated for closely related species across many taxa. This pattern is usually explained by assuming that species with smaller ranges are ecologically inferior (e.g., poor competitors or dispersers). Many areas of hig...

The pattern of species abundances is central to ecology. But direct measurements of species abundances at ecologically relevant scales are typically unfeasible. This limitation has motivated a long-standing interest in the relationship between the abundance distribution in a large, regional community and the distribution observed in a small sample from the community. Here, we develop a statisti...

Jessica L. Green and Joshua B. Plotkin* Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, 433 S. University Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA *Correspondence: E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The pattern of species abundances is central to ecology. But direct measurements of species abundances at ecologic...

The perceived threat of climate change is often evaluated from species distribution models that are fitted to many species independently and then added together. This approach ignores the fact that species are jointly distributed and limit one another. Species respond to the same underlying climatic variables, and the abundance of any one species can be constrained by competition; a large incre...

In urban landscapes, gardens provide refuges for bee diversity, but conservation potential may depend on local and landscape features. Foraging and population persistence of bee species, as well as overall pollinator community structure, may be supported by the abundance, richness, and spatial distribution of floral resources. Floral resources strongly differ in urban gardens. Using hand nettin...

in this investigation an attempt has been made to study the species composition, distribution and seasonal fluctuation of acarine community (arachnida: acari) in two undisturbed and well-vegetated plots located within padmaja naidu himalayan zoolo-gical park, darjeeling, india. the study continued for three consecutive years (january to december 1999–2001) revealed the presence of 10 acarine ge...

To understand renal responses to salinity change in aquatic reptiles, we examined the structure and function of the kidney in three species of snake: a marine species with a salt gland (Laticauda semifasciata), a marine species without a salt gland (Nerodia clarkii clarkii) and a freshwater species without a salt gland (Nerodia fasciata). Both marine species maintained relatively constant plasm...