Taxonomic and regional uncertainty in species-area relationships and the identification of richness hotspots.

ABSTRACT: Species-area relationships (SARs) are fundamental to the study of key and high-profile issues in conservation biology and are particularly widely used in establishing the broad patterns of biodiversity that underpin approaches to determining priority areas for biological conservation. Classically, the SAR has been argued in general to conform to a power-law relationship, and this form has been widely assumed in most applications in the field of conservation biology. Here, using nonlinear regressions within an information theoretical model selection framework, we included uncertainty regarding both model selection and parameter estimation in SAR modeling and conducted a global-scale analysis of the form of SARs for vascular plants and major vertebrate groups across 792 terrestrial ecoregion

SUBMITTER: Guilhaumon F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2563089 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature