On the relationship between species diversity and range size

Abstract

Aim: What factors may affect species range sizes remains a central question in ecologyand biogeography. Particularly, whether and how species richness may regulateaverage species range size remains largely elusive. Here, we explore the relationshipbetween species diversity and species range size at a global extent and discuss itsimplications and significance for ecology and management.Location: Worldwide. Taxon: Plants and various groups of animals.Methods: We used published data on plant richness and range size from around theworld and synthesized related literature to assess the richness–rangesize relationships. We used paired t-tests and spatial autoregressive models in data analyses. Weconducted a series of partial regressions to partition the variation in species rangesexplained by paired independent variables (i.e. species richness versus latitude, speciesrichness versus temperature or species richness versus temperature variability).Results: A negative relationship between species diversity (richness) and speciesrange size is nearly ubiquitous. In most cases, species diversity was a better predictorfor species range size than latitude, temperature or temperature variability.Main conclusions: The diversity predictor works well for different taxonomic groups,regions, continents, and for both terrestrial and marine biomes. High species diversitycould imply stronger species interactions such as competition which limit the rangesizes of constituent species. A nearly universal negative richness–rangesize relationship thus has significant implications for species invasion biology and conservation.

Citation

Guo, Qinfeng; Qian, Hong; Zhang, Jian. 2022. On the relationship between species diversity and range size. Journal of Biogeography. 4(7): e208-. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14477.