What is macroecology?

Macroecology deals with ecological patterns and processes at various scales

In particular macroecology tries to identify and to explain regional to global patterns of species diversity, spatial and

temporal distributions and energy use

Macroecology is closely linked to biogeography and evolutionary ecology

Biogeography

Tries to understand large scale distributions of living thinks

Evolutionary Ecology

Tries to understand patterns of species diversity through

evolutionary history

Macroecology

Tries to link both disciplines and to explain larges scale

ecological patterns and processes in space and time

Important: The focus is on explanation and model building and not on simple description.

Modern ecology is not a faunistic or floristic exercise.

It uses larges scale data sets to build and verify its theories about the causes of observed patterns.

A standard method of macroecology is meta-analysis.

Macroecology has deep ecological roots but only recent times saw the tranformation to an analytical explanatory science

Land plant of Britain from Watson (1859)

y = 433.2x0.10

R2 = 0.98

100

1000

10000

1 100 10000

Area [miles 2 ]

Num

ber

of s

peci

es

Species – area relationship Neutral models,

Ecological scaling

and

Metabolic theory

Description Explanation

Communitystructure

Lifehistrory

traitsPhenology

Phylogenetic constraints

Speciesassemblage

rules

Niche History

Character evolution

BiogeographyBiotic interactions

Chance processes

1

10

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1000

10000

100000

1000000

10000000

1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000 10000000

Spatial scale [m2]

Te

mpo

ral s

cale

[day

s]

z

patches

Annualecosystemprocesses

Processesin ecological

time

Annual regionalspecies turnover

Landscapeprocesses

Landscapeprocesses in

evolutionary time

Continentalprocesses in

evolutionary time

Continentalprocesses in

ecological time

Macroecology

Ecolog

ical processes

Evo

lutio

nary

pro

cess

es

Evolutionary processes

Ecological processes

PredationDisturbanceCompetition

Dispersal MetapopulationsSpatial processes

Speciation ExtinctionGeological processes

FluctuationsLocal species turnover

Dispersal MetapopulationsMetacommunities

Speciation ExtinctionClimatic processes

Lecture program

1. Introduction

2. Fundamental relationships in macroecology

3. Metabolic theory

4. Diversity and productivity I

5. Diversity and productivity II

6. Latitudinal gradients

7. Patterns at ecological time scales

8. Local and regional diversities

9. Fragmented landscapes

10. Neutral models in macroecology

11. Body sizes

12. Invasive species

13. Global change I

14. Global change II

15. Phylogeny and ecology

Scources of knowledge

Literature:

Brown JH 1995. Macroecology. Univ. Press, Chicago.

Gaston KJ, Blackburn TM 2000. Pattern and Process in Macroecology Blackwell Sci. Publ, Oxford.

Blackburn TM, Gaston KJ (eds) 2003. Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.

Journals:

Ecography

Journal of Biogeography

Diversity and Distributions

Ecology Letters

Global Ecology and Biogeography

Internet sources:

The whole lecture is available at our workgroup homepage

www.uni.torun.pl/~urichw

http://www.macroecology.org/

http://www.biome.group.shef.ac.uk/

http://www.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/PopEcol/popecol.html

Other macroecological tools

Analysis of large scale spatial data

GIS methods

Statistical methods for relating environmental variables to distribution maps

Mantel test

Spatial correlation

Multidimensional scaling

Analysis of climatological palaeontological data

Time series analysis

Spectral analysis

Analysis of recent faunistic and floristic surveys

Co-occurrence analysis

Nestedness analysis

Today’s reading

What is macroecology?: http://www.macroecology.org

Meta-analysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis http://wilderdom.com/research/meta-analysis.html

Alexander v. Humboldt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt