Mechanisms underlying the bioindicator notion: spatial association between individual sexual performance and community diversity.

ABSTRACT: The bioindicator notion is an appealing concept that has received more support in applied than in basic ecology, mostly due to the difficulty in deriving general ecological rules applicable to all target organisms. However, recognizing the mechanisms that determine the association between a particular species and the well-being of many other species is important for understanding the functioning of ecosystems and the relationship among different biological levels. We examined here the processes at the individual level that cause an association between species performance and biodiversity value, by analyzing attributes that can be studied in a variety of animals with sexual reproduction, namely breeding site selection and condition-dependent sexual signals. Our study model was the Capercail

SUBMITTER: Laiolo P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3144237 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature