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
100
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