Scheda di dettaglio – i prodotti della ricerca
| Dato | Valore |
|---|---|
| Title | Evidence of Weak Habitat Specialisation in Microscopic Animals |
| Abstract | Macroecology and biogeography of microscopic organisms (any living organism smaller than 2 mm) are quickly developing into fruitful research areas. Microscopic organisms also offer the potential for testing predictions and models derived from observations on larger organisms due to the feasibility of performing lab and mesocosm experiments. However, more empirical knowledge on the similarities and differences between micro- and macro-organisms is needed to ascertain how much of the results obtained from the former can be generalised to the latter. One potential misconception, based mostly on anedoctal evidence rather than explicit tests, is that microscopic organisms may have wider ecological tolerance and a lower degree of habitat specialisation than large organisms. Here we explicitly test this hypothesis within the framework of metacommunity theory, by studying host specificify in the assemblages of bdelloid rotifers (animals about 350 mm in body length) living in different species of lichens in Sweden. Using several regression-based and ANOVA analyses and controlling for both spatial structure and the kind of substrate the lichen grow over (bark vs rock), we found evidence of significant but weak species-specific associations between bdelloids and lichens, a wide overlap in species composition between lichens, and wide ecological tolerance for most bdelloid species. This confirms that microscopic organisms such as bdelloids have a lower degree of habitat specialisation than larger organisms, although this happens in a complex scenario of ecological processes, where source-sink dynamics and geographic distances seem to have no effect on species composition at the analysed scale. |
| Source | PloS one 6 (8) |
| Journal | PloS one |
| Editor | Public Library of Science, San Francisco, CA, Stati Uniti d'America |
| Year | 2011 |
| Type | Articolo in rivista |
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0023969 |
| Authors | Fontaneto, Diego; Westberg, Martin; Hortal, Joaquin |
| Text | 283515 2011 10.1371/journal.pone.0023969 ISI Web of Science WOS 000295832000080 Evidence of Weak Habitat Specialisation in Microscopic Animals Fontaneto, Diego; Westberg, Martin; Hortal, Joaquin Imperial College London; Swedish Museum Nat Hist; Swedish Museum Nat Hist; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas CSIC ; Universidade Federal de Goias Macroecology and biogeography of microscopic organisms any living organism smaller than 2 mm are quickly developing into fruitful research areas. Microscopic organisms also offer the potential for testing predictions and models derived from observations on larger organisms due to the feasibility of performing lab and mesocosm experiments. However, more empirical knowledge on the similarities and differences between micro and macro organisms is needed to ascertain how much of the results obtained from the former can be generalised to the latter. One potential misconception, based mostly on anedoctal evidence rather than explicit tests, is that microscopic organisms may have wider ecological tolerance and a lower degree of habitat specialisation than large organisms. Here we explicitly test this hypothesis within the framework of metacommunity theory, by studying host specificify in the assemblages of bdelloid rotifers animals about 350 mm in body length living in different species of lichens in Sweden. Using several regression based and ANOVA analyses and controlling for both spatial structure and the kind of substrate the lichen grow over bark vs rock , we found evidence of significant but weak species specific associations between bdelloids and lichens, a wide overlap in species composition between lichens, and wide ecological tolerance for most bdelloid species. This confirms that microscopic organisms such as bdelloids have a lower degree of habitat specialisation than larger organisms, although this happens in a complex scenario of ecological processes, where source sink dynamics and geographic distances seem to have no effect on species composition at the analysed scale. 6 Articolo in rivista Public Library of Science 1932 6203 PloS one PloS one PLoS ONE PloS one Public Library of Science one PLoS 1 diego.fontaneto FONTANETO DIEGO |