The pitfalls of biodiversity proxies: Differences in richness patterns of birds, trees and understudied diversity across Amazonia.
- Ritter CD Department of Eukaryotic Microbiology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstrasse 5 S05 R04 H83, D-45141, Essen, Germany. kmicaduarte@gmail.com.
- Faurby S Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Box 461, SE-405 30, Göteborg, Sweden.
- Bennett DJ Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Box 461, SE-405 30, Göteborg, Sweden.
- Naka LN Laboratório de Ornitologia, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil.
- Ter Steege H Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, Netherlands.
- Zizka A German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
- Haenel Q Zoological Institute, University of Basel, Vesalgasse 1, CH-4051, Basel, Switzerland.
- Nilsson RH Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Box 461, SE-405 30, Göteborg, Sweden.
- Antonelli A Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Box 461, SE-405 30, Göteborg, Sweden.
- 2019-12-18
Published in:
- Scientific reports. - 2019
English
Most knowledge on biodiversity derives from the study of charismatic macro-organisms, such as birds and trees. However, the diversity of micro-organisms constitutes the majority of all life forms on Earth. Here, we ask if the patterns of richness inferred for macro-organisms are similar for micro-organisms. For this, we barcoded samples of soil, litter and insects from four localities on a west-to-east transect across Amazonia. We quantified richness as Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) in those samples using three molecular markers. We then compared OTU richness with species richness of two relatively well-studied organism groups in Amazonia: trees and birds. We find that OTU richness shows a declining west-to-east diversity gradient that is in agreement with the species richness patterns documented here and previously for birds and trees. These results suggest that most taxonomic groups respond to the same overall diversity gradients at large spatial scales. However, our results show a different pattern of richness in relation to habitat types, suggesting that the idiosyncrasies of each taxonomic group and peculiarities of the local environment frequently override large-scale diversity gradients. Our findings caution against using the diversity distribution of one taxonomic group as an indication of patterns of richness across all groups.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- gold
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1038/s41598-019-55490-3
- PMID 31844092
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/93656
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