Testing the water-energy theory on American palms (Arecaceae) using geographically weighted regression.

ABSTRACT: Water and energy have emerged as the best contemporary environmental correlates of broad-scale species richness patterns. A corollary hypothesis of water-energy dynamics theory is that the influence of water decreases and the influence of energy increases with absolute latitude. We report the first use of geographically weighted regression for testing this hypothesis on a continuous species richness gradient that is entirely located within the tropics and subtropics. The dataset was divided into northern and southern hemispheric portions to test whether predictor shifts are more pronounced in the less oceanic northern hemisphere. American palms (Arecaceae, n = 547 spp.), whose species richness and distributions are known to respond strongly to water and energy, were used as a model group.

SUBMITTER: Eiserhardt WL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3207816 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature