Abstract
In this chapter we emphasize that regional processes shape local diversity and that the realized diversity represents the interplay of local and regional processes. Local diversity is predicted by the number of species in the regional species pool. This species pool is a result of speciation, extinction and migration among regions. At smaller scales, environmental disturbance, stochastic extinctions, productivity, predation, competition, dispersal and facilitation modulate diversity patterns limited by the size of the regional species pool. Using examples from different biogeographic regions, we illustrate how community variability varies across spatial scales and how the balance between local and regional environmental variability determines the structure of benthic assemblages.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bambach RK, Knoll AH, Wang SC (2004) Origination, extinction, and mass depletions of marine diversity. Paleobiology 30:522–542
Barraclough TG, Vogler AF, Harvey PL (1998) Revealing the factors that promote speciation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 353:241–249
Beaugrand G, Reid PC, Ibanez F, Lindley JA, Edwards M (2002) Reorganization of North Atlantic marine copepod biodiversity and climate. Science 296:1692–1694
Burrows MT, Moore JJ, James B (2002) Spatial synchrony of population changes in rocky shore communities in Shetland. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 240:39–48
Carlton JT, Geller JB (1993) Ecological roulette: the global transport of nonindigenous marine organisms. Science 261:78–82
Caswell H, Cohen JE (1993) Local and regional regulation of species-area relations: a patch occupancy model. In: Ricklefs RE, Schluter D (eds) Species diversity in ecological communities: historical and geographical perspectives. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp 99–107
Chapman MG, Underwood AJ (1998) Inconsistency and variation in the development of rocky intertidal algal assemblages. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 224:265–289
Chiswell SM, Wilkin J, Booth JD, Stanton B (2003) Trans-Tasman Sea larval transport: is Australia a source for New Zealand rock lobsters? Mar Ecol Prog Ser 247:173–182
Cloern JE (2001) Our evolving conceptual model of the coastal eutrophication problem. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 210:223–253
Connell SD, Irving AD (2008) Integrating ecology with biogeography using landscape characteristics: a case study of subtidal habitat across continental Australia. J Biogeogr 35:1608–1621
Cornell HV (1985) Local and regional richness of cynipine gall wasps on California oaks. Ecology 66:1247–1260
Cornell HV, Karlson RH (1996) Diversity of reef-building corals determined by local and regional processes. J Anim Ecol 65:233–241
Dye AH (1998) Community-level analyses of long-term changes in rocky littoral fauna from South Africa. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 164:47–57
Glynn PW (1988) El Nino–Southern Oscillation 1982-1983: nearshore population, community, and ecosystem responses. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 19:309–345
Herkül K, Kotta J, Kotta I, Orav-Kotta H (2006) Effects of physical disturbance, isolation and key macrozoobenthic species on community development, recolonisation and sedimentation processes. Oceanologia 48S:267–282
Highsmith RC (1985) Floating and algal rafting as potential dispersal mechanisms in brooding invertebrates. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 25:169–179
Holyoak M, Leibold MA, Moquet N, Holt RD, Hoopes MF (2005) Metacommunities: a framework for large-scale community ecology. In: Holyoak M, Leibold MA, Moquet N, Holt RD (eds) Metacommunities: spatial dynamics and ecological communities. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp 1–34
Hubbell SP (2001) The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Hughes L (2000) Biological consequences of global warming: is the signal already apparent? Trends Ecol Evol 15:56–61
Hugueny B, Cornell HV, Harrison S (2007) Metacommunity models predict the local-regional species richness relationship in a natural system. Ecology 88:1696–1706
Jackson JBC (1977) Competition on marine hard substrata: the adaptive significance of solitary and colonial strategies. Am Nat 111:743–767
Jackson JBC, Budd AF (1996) Evolution and environment: introduction and overview. In: Jackson JBC, Budd AF, Coates AG (eds) Evolution and environment in tropical America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp 1–20
Janke K (1990) Biological interactions and their role in the community structure in the rocky intertidal of Helgoland (German Bight, North Sea). Helgol Wiss Meeresunters 44:219–263
Karlson RH, Cornell HV, Hughes TP (2004) Coral communities are regionally enriched along an oceanic biodiversity gradient. Nature 429:867–870
Keddy P, Weiher E (1999) Introduction: the scope and goals of research on assembly rules. In: Weiher E, Keddy P (eds) Ecological assembly rules. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–22
Kotta J, Orav-Kotta H, Paalme T, Kotta I, Kukk H (2006) Seasonal changes in situ grazing of the mesoherbivores Idotea baltica and Gammarus oceanicus on the brown algae Fucus vesiculosus and Pylaiella littoralis in the central Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea. Hydrobiologia 554:117–125
Kotta J, Lauringson V, Kotta I (2007) Role of functional diversity and physical environment on the response of zoobenthos communities to changing eutrophication. Hydrobiologia 580:97–108
Kotta J, Lauringson V, Martin G, Simm M, Kotta I, Herkül K, Ojaveer H (2008) Gulf of Riga and Pärnu Bay. In: Schiewer U (ed) Ecology of Baltic coastal waters. Ecological Studies 197. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 217–243
Lauringson V, Mälton E, Kotta J, Kangur K, Orav-Kotta H, Kotta I (2007) Environmental factors influencing the biodeposition of the suspension feeding bivalve Dreissena polymorpha (Pallas): comparison of brackish and fresh water populations in the Northern Baltic Sea and Lake Peipsi. Estuarine Coast Shelf Sci 75:459–467
Lawrence JM (1975) On the relationship between marine plants and sea urchins. Oceanogr Mar Biol Annu Rev 13:213–286
Lawton JH (2000) Community ecology in a changing world. Ecology Institute, Oldendorf Little C, Kitching JA (1996) The biology of the rocky shores. Oxford University Press, New York
Little C, Kitching JA (1996) The biology of the rocky shores. Oxford University Press, New York
Lubchenco J, Gaines SD (1981) A unified approach to marine-plant herbivore interactions. I. Populations and communities. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 12:405–437
MacArthur RH, Wilson EO (1967) The theory of island biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Mann KH, Lazier JRN (1996) Dynamics of marine ecosystems: biological-physical interactions in the oceans. Blackwell, Cambridge, MA
Marincovitch L (1977) Cenozoic Naticidae (Mollusca Gastropoda) of the northeastern Pacific. Bull Am Paleontol 70:169–494
Menge BA, Sutherland JP (1987) Community regulation: variation in disturbance, competition and predation in relation to environmental stress and recruitment. Am Nat 130:730–757
Mills EL, Leach JH, Carlton JT, Secor CL (1993) Exotic species in the Great Lakes: a history of biotic crises and anthropogenic introductions. J Great Lakes Res 19:1–54
Mungia P (2004) Successional patterns on pen shell communities at local and regional scales. J Anim Ecol 73:64–74
Orav-Kotta H, Kotta J, Herkül K, Kotta I, Paalme T (2009) Seasonal variability in the grazing potential of the invasive amphipod Gammarus tigrinus and the native amphipod Gammarus salinus in the northern Baltic Sea. Biol Invasions 11:597–608
Pianka ER (1971) Species diversity. In: Kramer A (ed) Topics in the study of life: The Bio Source Book. Harper & Row, New York, pp 401–406
Ricklefs RE (1987) Community diversity: relative roles of local and regional processes. Science 235:167–171
Ricklefs RE, Schluter D (1993) Species diversity: regional and historical influences In: Ricklefs RE, Schluter D (eds) Species diversity in ecological communities: historical and geographical perspectives. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp 350–364
Rivadeneira MM, Fernández M, Navarrete SA (2002) Latitudinal trends of species diversity in rocky intertidal herbivore assemblages: spatial scale and the relationship between local and regional species richness. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 245:123–131
Rosensweig ML (1995) Species diversity in space and time. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Roughgarden J, Gaines S, Possingham HP (1988) Recruitment dynamics in complex life cycles. Science 241:1460–1466
Russell R, Wood SA, Allison G, Menge BA (2006) Scale, environment and trophic status: the context dependency of community saturation in rocky intertidal communities. Am Nat 167:E158–E170
Santileces B, Bolton JJ, Meneses I (2009) Marine algal communities. In: Witman JD, Roy K (eds) Marine macroecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (in press)
Scheltema RS (1989) Planktonic and non-planktonic development among prosobranch gastropods and its relationships to the geographic ranges of species. In: Ryland JS, Tyler PA (eds) Reproduction, genetics, and distributions of marine organisms. Olsen and Olsen, Fredensborg, pp 183–188
Southward AJ, Crisp DJ (1954) Recent changes in the distribution of the intertidal barnacles Chthamalus stellatus Poli and Balanus balanoides L. in the British Isles. J Anim Ecol 23:163–177
Southward AJ, Hawkins SJ, Burrows MT (1995) Seventy years’ observations of changes in distribution and abundance of zooplankton and intertidal organisms in the western English Channel in relation to rising sea temperature. J Therm Biol 20:127–155
Stenseth NC, Ottersen G, Hurrell JW, Mysterud A, Lima M, Chan KS, Yoccoz NG, Adlandsvik B (2003) Studying climate effects on ecology through the use of climate indices: the North Atlantic Oscillation, El Nino Southern Oscillation and beyond. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 270:2087–2096
Stuart CT, Rex MA (1991) Larval development and species diversity. The relationship between developmental pattern and species diversity in deep-sea prosobranch snails. In: Young CM, Eckelbarger KJ (eds) Reproduction, larval biology, and recruitment of the deep-sea benthos. Columbia University Press, New York, pp 118–136
Terborg JW, Faaborg J (1980) Saturation of bird communities in the West Indies. Am Nat 116:178–195
Vermeij GJ (1978) Biogeography and adaptation: patterns of marine life. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Veron JEN (1995) Corals in space and time. UNSW Press, Sydney
Whittaker RJ, Willis KJ, Field R (2001) Scale and species richness: towards a general, hierarchical theory of species diversity. J Biogeogr 28:453–470
Williams CB (1943) Area and the number of species. Nature 152:264–267
Witman JD, Dayton PK (2001) Rocky subtidal communities. In: Bertness MD, Gaines SD, Hay M (eds) Marine community ecology. Sinauer Press, Sunderland, MA, pp 339–366
Witman JD, Genovese SJ, Bruno JF, McLaughlin JW, Pavlin BI (2003) Massive prey recruitment and the control of rocky subtidal communities on large spatial scales. Ecol Monogr 73:441–462
Witman JD, Etter RJ, Smith F (2004) The relationship between regional and local species diversity in marine benthic communities: a global perspective. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:15664–15669
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kotta, J., Witman, J.D. (2009). Regional-Scale Patterns. In: Wahl, M. (eds) Marine Hard Bottom Communities. Ecological Studies, vol 206. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/b76710_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/b76710_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-92703-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-92704-4
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)