• Request Info
  • Visit
  • Apply
  • Give
  • Request Info
  • Visit
  • Apply
  • Give

Search

  • A-Z Index
  • Map

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

  • About
    • Bylaws
    • Give to EEB
    • Alumni
  • People
    • Faculty
    • Emeritus
    • Graduate Students
    • Adjunct
    • Postdocs
    • Lecturers
    • Research Staff
    • Administrative Staff
  • Undergraduate Students
    • EEB Concentration in Biology
    • EEB Minor
    • Honors
    • Course Descriptions
    • Naturalists Club
    • Fellowships
    • Be successful in EEB
  • Graduate Students
    • Graduate Student Handbook
    • FAQs
    • Applying to Grad School
    • GREBE
    • Funding
  • Research and Outreach
    • Research Highlights
    • Undergraduate Research Opportunities
    • Outreach Events
  • Collections and Facilities
    • UT Herbarium
    • UT Etnier Ichthyology Collection
    • Hesler Biology Greenhouses
    • Natural History Collections Course
    • Fellowships and Awards
    • Biology Field Station
  • News & Seminars
    • Current Seminars
    • News
    • Newsletter
Home » Science article on beta diversity

Science article on beta diversity

September 23, 2011 by artsciweb

A recent paper by Kraft, Comita, Chase, EEB faculty member Nate Sanders, Swenson, Crist, Stegen, Vellend, Boyle, Anderson, Cornell, Davies, Freestone, Inouye, Harrison, and Meyers on “Disentangling the Drivers of ? Diversity Along Latitudinal and Elevational Gradients” appeared in today’s Science. This was work done as part of an NCEAS working group.

Abstract:
Understanding spatial variation in biodiversity along environmental gradients is a central theme in ecology. Differences in species compositional turnover among sites (? diversity) occurring along gradients are often used to infer variation in the processes structuring communities. Here, we show that sampling alone predicts changes in ? diversity caused simply by changes in the sizes of species pools. For example, forest inventories sampled along latitudinal and elevational gradients show the well-documented pattern that ? diversity is higher in the tropics and at low elevations. However, after correcting for variation in pooled species richness (? diversity), these differences in ? diversity disappear. Therefore, there is no need to invoke differences in the mechanisms of community assembly in temperate versus tropical systems to explain these global-scale patterns of ? diversity.

Filed Under: ecology, MAIN, NCEAS, Sanders, Science

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

College of Arts and Sciences

569 Dabney Hall
Knoxville TN 37996-1610

Email: eeb@utk.edu

Phone: 865-974-3065

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
865-974-1000

The flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System and partner in the Tennessee Transfer Pathway.

ADA Privacy Safety Title IX