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Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

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Species interactions constrain geographic range expansion over evolutionary time.

Alex L Pigot¹, Joseph A Tobias

¹Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. alex.pigot@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Ecology Letters

|December 13, 2012

Summary

Biotic interactions, mainly ecological competition, limit species

Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Ecology
Biogeography

Background:

The role of biotic interactions in limiting species' geographic ranges remains a long-standing debate in ecology.
Traditional analyses of static distribution patterns have yielded limited progress in resolving this controversy.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether biotic interactions constrain the transition to secondary sympatry following speciation.
To test the hypothesis that ecological competition limits species distributions across large spatial and temporal scales.

Main Methods:

A novel phylogenetic approach was employed to analyze speciation events and range overlap.
The study focused on a diverse clade of passerine birds (Furnariidae).
Models of range overlap were tested against dispersal and environmental constraints.

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Main Results:

The study rejected models of geographic range overlap limited purely by dispersal or environmental constraints.
Rates of secondary sympatry were found to be positively associated with both phylogenetic and morphological distance between species.
Transition rates to sympatry increase with time since divergence and accelerate as ecological differences accumulate.

Conclusions:

Biotic interactions, particularly ecological competition, significantly limit species distributions across large spatial and temporal scales.
Phylogenetic and trait-based metrics can be used to incorporate these interactions into ecological forecasting models.