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Preface
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- By Roger K. Butlin, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Jon R. Bridle, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, Zoology Department and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia
- Edited by Roger Butlin, University of Sheffield, Jon Bridle, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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- Book:
- Speciation and Patterns of Diversity
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 22 January 2009, pp ix-x
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Summary
This volume is derived from the Annual Symposium of the British Ecological Society on ‘Speciation and Ecology’ which was held at the University of Sheffield, 28–30 March 2007. The idea for this Symposium arose during a previous meeting in the series, the 2002 ‘Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences’ meeting organized by Tim Blackburn and Kevin Gaston. The 2002 meeting concentrated on large-scale diversity patterns. Many speakers acknowledged the role of speciation in generating diversity and influencing patterns of diversity. Although there was some discussion of the factors that determine rates of speciation, it was striking how little contact there seemed to be between the discipline of macroecology and the large and active field of research into mechanisms of adaptive divergence and speciation. ‘Ecological speciation’ has been an area of research growth in recent years, asking how ecological drivers influence the speciation process. However, the opposite direction of effect, how speciation processes impact on ecological patterns, has been studied less. Therefore, we proposed a meeting whose central objective was to foster dialogue between these two fields.
The meeting had an unusual mix of participants but we hope that they managed to communicate effectively with one another! The chapters in this book reflect the range of topics discussed and we hope that they will help to continue the conversations that were started in Sheffield.
Acknowledgements
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- By Roger K. Butlin, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Jon R. Bridle, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, Zoology Department and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia
- Edited by Roger Butlin, University of Sheffield, Jon Bridle, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
-
- Book:
- Speciation and Patterns of Diversity
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 22 January 2009, pp xi-xii
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1 - Speciation and patterns of biodiversity
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- By Roger K. Butlin, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Jon R. Bridle, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, Zoology Department and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia
- Edited by Roger Butlin, University of Sheffield, Jon Bridle, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
-
- Book:
- Speciation and Patterns of Diversity
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 22 January 2009, pp 1-14
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Summary
There are many more species of insects (>850,000) than of their putative sister taxon (Entognatha, 7500 species) (Mayhew 2002). More than 1600 species of birds have been recorded near the Equator in the New World compared with 300–400 species at latitudes around 40° North or South (Gaston & Blackburn 2000). Mammalian families with average body sizes around 10 g have nearly 10 times as many species as those with average body sizes around 3 kg (Purvis et al. 2003). In a catch of 15,609 moths of 240 species over 4 years of light trapping at Rothamsted, England, the majority of species (180) were represented by 50 individuals or less (Fisher et al. 1943). These observations illustrate the highly uneven distribution of the world's biological diversity. They are examples of four well-known patterns: species richness varies among clades; it varies spatially, with the latitudinal gradient being a classic example; it is higher in small animals than large ones; and rare species are more numerous than common ones. Documenting and explaining such patterns is a major enterprise of ecology (Gaston & Blackburn 2000).
In their introduction to a previous British Ecological Society (BES) Symposium Volume, Blackburn and Gaston (2003) identified three evolutionary processes that underlie large-scale patterns of biodiversity: speciation, extinction and range changes. Anagenetic change might also contribute to some patterns, for example if there is a general tendency for size increase among mammalian lineages (Alroy 1998).
6 - Limits to adaptation and patterns of biodiversity
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- By Jon R. Bridle, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Jitka Polechová, Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland, Tim H. Vines, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive Montpellier
- Edited by Roger Butlin, University of Sheffield, Jon Bridle, University of Bristol, Dolph Schluter, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
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- Book:
- Speciation and Patterns of Diversity
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 22 January 2009, pp 77-101
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Summary
Why do species have finite ranges in space and time?
All species have limited ecological distributions, and all species eventually become extinct. At the heart of these distributional limits is the idea of trade-offs: a single population or species cannot maximize its fitness in all environments (Woodward and Kelly 2003). Each species therefore occupies a limited range of ecological conditions, or a particular period in history, and interacts in complex ways in ecosystems consisting of many co-existing species. These interactions may in turn generate more specialization (Nosil & Harmon, this volume; Schemske, this volume). However, from an evolutionary biology perspective this explanation is incomplete. Populations clearly adapt to novel environments in some circumstances, otherwise there would be no life on land, no mammals in the ocean, and only a few species on oceanic islands such as Hawaii (Wagner & Funk 1995). What processes, therefore, act to constrain adaptation to changing environments and continually prevent the expansion of species into new habitats at the edge of their range?
Understanding the factors that limit the temporal or spatial persistence of species is of key practical importance, given ongoing changes in global climate (Root et al. 2003), coupled with rapid habitat loss and alteration by the introduction of exotic species of parasites, predators and competitors.