Predicting continental-scale patterns of bird species richness with spatially explicit models.

ABSTRACT: The causes of global variation in species richness have been debated for nearly two centuries with no clear resolution in sight. Competing hypotheses have typically been evaluated with correlative models that do not explicitly incorporate the mechanisms responsible for biotic diversity gradients. Here, we employ a fundamentally different approach that uses spatially explicit Monte Carlo models of the placement of cohesive geographical ranges in an environmentally heterogeneous landscape. These models predict species richness of endemic South American birds (2248 species) measured at a continental scale. We demonstrate that the principal single-factor and composite (species-energy, water-energy and temperature-kinetics) models proposed thus far fail to predict (r(2) < or =.05) the richness

SUBMITTER: Rahbek C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1685854 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature