Estimating and interpreting migration of Amazonian forests using spatially implicit and semi-explicit neutral models
Edwin Pos1,2, Juan Ernesto Guevara Andino3, Daniel Sabatier4
1Ecology and Biodiversity Group Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands.
Ecology and Evolution
|June 27, 2017
Summary
Ecologists can now better estimate species migration using advanced methods. This study compares techniques, finding migration estimates reflect community resemblance and regional species pools, not just direct movement.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Population Dynamics
- Biodiversity Research
Background:
- Ecologists require robust methods to estimate species migration for conservation and understanding.
- Numerous sophisticated techniques exist, creating a challenge in selecting the most appropriate method.
- Large-scale ecological datasets provide opportunities to test and validate these estimation methods.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test and compare several sophisticated methods for estimating species migration.
- To perform sanity and robustness tests on these methods using large-scale field data.
- To discuss the results and interpretation of migration estimates in ecological contexts.
Main Methods:
- Compared five distinct methods for estimating migration.
- Utilized spatially implicit and semi-explicit simulations.
- Applied methods to three large-scale field datasets from South America (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Ecuador).
- Incorporated space semi-explicitly using a discrete probability mass function for local recruitment and migration from adjacent plots or a metacommunity.
Main Results:
- Most methods accurately estimated migration from spatially implicit simulations.
- For spatially semi-explicit simulations, accurate estimation depended on metacommunity migration outweighing adjacent plot migration.
- Discrimination between adjacent plot and metacommunity migration proved impossible.
- Migration estimates approximate community resemblance and the regional species pool, correlating with beta diversity.
Conclusions:
- Migration estimates are better viewed as an approximation of community homogenization over time rather than direct measurement.
- Estimated migration in spatially explicit models is an ecological aggregate of various processes, not solely direct migration.
- The parameter 'm' in neutral models is an emergent property, not a mechanistic parameter.
- Spatially implicit models are unsuitable for approximating forest dynamics.
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