Temperate grassland songbird species accumulate incrementally along a gradient of primary productivity.

ABSTRACT: Global analyses of bird communities along elevation gradients suggest that bird diversity on arid mountains is primarily limited by water availability, not temperature or altitude. However, the mechanism by which water availability, and subsequently primary productivity, increases bird diversity is still unclear. Here we evaluate two possible mechanisms from species-energy theory. The more individuals hypothesis proposes that a higher availability of resources increases the total number of individuals that can be supported, and therefore the greater number of species that will be sampled. By contrast, the more specialization hypothesis proposes that increasing resource availability will permit specialists to exploit otherwise rare resources, thus increasing total diversity. We used 5 years

SUBMITTER: Harrower WL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5653332 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature